Response to "Who Will Protect Unionizing Workers?"

While reading today’s Washington Post, I came across the following opinion response entitled “Who Will Protect Unionizing Workers?” I usually do not pull apart someone’s opinion piece, but I found some issues with this article that I wanted to address.

A March 15 news story reported that the debate over the proposed Employee Free Choice Act has evolved from a “narrow clash between unions and employers” into a debate over “fundamental questions of American capitalism.”

While this is true, the real issue here is a question of basic fairness that can never be reduced to one bargainer’s economic advantage. If the Employee Free Choice Act does not survive the Senate minority’s threatened filibuster, the public will demand to know what the minority proposes to substitute in place of this essential legislation. Instead of heated rhetoric and partisan bickering, what real solutions will be proposed to address the long history of employer intimidation against workers who seek to unionize their workplaces?

Point 1: The statement, “the real issue here is a question of basic fairness that can never be reduced to one bargainer’s economic advantage,” is misleading. While companies currently do have some recourse to a call for unionization, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will flip the power to the other party. So, in essence, the “fairness” will still be “reduced to one bargainer’s economic advantage.” Doesn’t that defeat the purpose?

Point 2: The statement, “the public will demand to know what the minority proposes to substitute in place of this essential legislation,” is also misleading. For starters, the minority doesn’t have to submit a substitute if they have no issues with the current rules. That is like someone proposing a rule that all Congressmen must wear pink ties while in session. If the minority party filibusters the legislation because they think it is unnecessary, why would they have to propose a new piece of legislation?

Many of our religious traditions, from the Jewish Workmen’s Circle and the Social Gospel of mainline Protestantism to the social justice encyclicals of the popes, have taught that denying workers the right to organize is an attack on human dignity.

When opponents of the legislation claim that technology has created the great prosperity of this nation, it makes us wonder whether the bosses forgot that workers without a decent wage cannot be consumers.

We’re in this together. The blindness of a few could beggar us all.

Point 3: I might not be the most well versed person on the Bible (as both Nicholas Cafardi and Jerome Maryon are), but I do not recall reading anywhere that unionization was essential to human dignity. Plus, with all the debate over the past eight years regarding “too much” religion in politics, I do not see how this helps the argument in favor of the EFCA.

Point 4: What determines a decent wage? If the technological advancements, such as computerizes plasma cutters, replaces a highly skilled position of a welder with a medium-skilled position of a computer operator, the company can pay the new employee less. This decrease in salary offsets the increased overhead cost for the new equipment; however, the company sees a net gain for increased production, efficiency, and quality.

While it might be disappointing for the company no longer needing the higher-skilled, higher-paid employee, it isn’t morally wrong to lay them off. In fact, we have many examples in our history where positions and skills become obsolete, new jobs and skills are created due to technological advancements.

For example, how many offices still use typewriters? Not many, since desktop computers have replaced the old technology. With the transition, offices could reduce the overhead labor costs since skilled computer users could produce more work in the same amount of time. Many secretaries and production/graphics employees went to school to learn news skills to use the computer and the software in order to retain their jobs and become more valuable. In essence, these individuals could now demand a higher wage over the lesser-skilled employees who did not evolve with the current technology.

Doing a Google search on these two individuals (assuming I found the right profiles), both authors are experienced men in religion and law, and so I welcome to be corrected on point 3. I do think, however, they could have drafted a better defense for EFCA than implying that the opponents are required to offer an alternative piece of legislation and that there is a moral reason for unionization.

(NOTE: I have yet to find a link for this article, so I’ve posted the whole text in the text above. Reference page A12 of the March 24, 2009 edition of the Washington Post if you wish to see the original article.)