More union busters
Bush administration
It starts at the top with the United States’ most anti-union, anti-worker
administration ever. President Bush’s National Labor Relations Board appointees
include a former management attorney, and the board’s decisions have been
consistently anti-worker and anti-union.
Last year board members voted 3-2 that academic student employees at private
universities are not workers and therefore not entitled to federal labor law
protection. They also voted 3-2 to deny nonunion workers the right to have a
co-worker present during meetings that might result in discipline or firing.
One of Bush’s first acts as president was to roll back Occupational Safety and Health Act standards developed by the UAW and other unions over a 10-year period and put in place by President Clinton. Then Bush denied the right to organize for 170,000 workers at the Department of Homeland Security. The Bush administration has led the attack on overtime pay, workers’ compensation, the 40-hour workweek and more. The president has pushed onerous, expensive and time-consuming financial reporting burdens on unions and in the 2005-2006 budget, while the nation faces record deficits, calling for more Labor Department funds for oversight of unions.
Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga.
The fact that the UAW’s National CAP Department gives Norwood a zero-percent voting record on issues important to the UAW should say it all — but that doesn’t come close to showing his anti-union activism.
Norwood, ironically chair of the Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, sponsored
2003’s failed Workers Bill of Rights that would have made card-check union
recognition illegal. He revived the notion again in 2004 as the Secret Ballot
Protection Act — and yet again this year.
The Republican congressman spoke at a National Right to Work Legal Defense Committee-organized
press conference in support of the act last year.
In February Norwood introduced four employer-friendly OSHA reform bills to Congress — reviving similar legislation that died in the Senate last year.
Cato Institute
The Cato Institute is among several conservative think tanks serving up “expert” testimonials, research and ideology to the anti-union forces. The free market ideology of Cato finds that unions interfere with corporate interests, citing what it calls an “epidemic of union-related violence.” Its publications offer arguments against minimum wage law, equal pay and affirmative action, and has issued a report attacking card-check recognition. Many Bush policies, including Social Security privatization and the so-called “ownership society,” come directly from Cato’s position papers.
Olin Foundation
According to People for the American Way, “The Olin Foundation, along with a number of other conservative foundations, links universities to Republican legislators, right-wing think tanks, as well as conservative publications, such as Commentary and The Public Interest (publications also funded by Olin). Research done in Olin programs provides an academic basis for right-wing policy.” Olin has given consistently and generously to the National Right to Work Committee over the past 15 years.
Ogletree, Deakins, Nash,
Smoak & Stewart, P.C
With its main office in Greenville, S.C., and 22 offices nationwide, Ogletree is one of the largest — and one of many — anti-union legal teams in the United States. Ogletree represents more than half of the nation’s Fortune 500 companies and has defeated almost every union it has engaged.
