The Hartford Courant, May 22, 2005, Sunday

Copyright 2005 Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Copyright 2005 The Hartford Courant
The Hartford Courant

May 22, 2005, Sunday


HEADLINE: The Hartford Courant, Conn., Dan Haar column

BYLINE: By Dan Haar

BODY:

IT'S TIME TO END CAPTIVE WORKER MEETINGS: A dozen or so years ago, Bruce "Zeke" Zalaski was ordered to a meeting with his fellow workers at Barnes Group Inc.'s Associated Spring division.
The company was in a dispute over benefits with the employees' union, the United Auto Workers. As Zalaski remembers it, a top Associated Spring executive said the union was "terrible," and, anyway, the boss said, the company and its workers were like a family, with no need of a union.
Zalaski -- then and now, a member of the union's negotiating committee -- recalls objecting to the statements, to no avail. Then and now, companies have the right to compel workers to meetings to hear the corporate message on various topics, including union activity, politics and even religion.
Today Zalaski, a state House Democrat from Southington, is a rarity, an active union member in the state legislature. He's still at Associated Spring in Bristol, a press set-up man, generally pleased with the company as an employer, he said.
With his own experience in mind, he's co-sponsoring a bill that would strip companies of the right to order employees to meetings on religion, politics or labor union affiliation.
Companies could still gather employees together to say what they wanted, as long as it didn't amount to discrimination, harassment or intimidation. But they couldn't force anyone to attend. The bill -- which would become the first law of its kind in the nation, if adopted, according to several experts -- pits labor unions against the business lobby. Both sides claim rights are at stake, along with economic common sense.
"It's a balancing act between the rights of the employer and the rights of the employee and the union," said Gary Starr, a partner in the employment law department of Shipman & Goodwin in Hartford. Unions, he said, "are seeking a way to shift the balance of influence during an organizing drive to the union's advantage, when the law and the federal regulatory scheme don't go that far."
This is a reform we should not need because, as opponents rightly say, federal labor laws do protect workers from intimidation by employers. Still, its time has come for reasons of balance. The system has grown rife with abuses by companies, and skewed against unions trying to organize workers.
Look at the numbers: The nation's workforce has slipped from a peak of 33 percent union in the 1950s to 12.5 percent today, and only about 8 percent in the private sector. There are plenty of reasons for this, but the rising power of employers has a lot to do with it.
Versions of this bill have arisen and died in Connecticut and elsewhere over the years. Last month, the idea died without a vote in the judiciary committee, but it's still alive, as supporters intend to bring it to the House floor under a new bill number.
Employers, the business lobby and opponents of the bill in the General Assembly say companies have the right to free speech, especially crucial since unions can contact workers at home. They also say the bill would lead to unintended consequences, such as scotching United Way meetings and the like -- and, more important, training meetings in diversity and cultural sensitivity.
"Define politicking. There's a whole bunch of stuff that comes around this issue," said Rep. Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, deputy GOP leader in the state House. "Will this law make it clear-cut? I don't think so. It needs to be sharpened."
He's right, it does need sharpening. But it's worth the fix, not the political trash bin. Arguments about unintended consequences are a smokescreen blocking the main issue. I'd suggest limiting the ban to mandatory meetings during union organizing drives.
But if it's easy to find flaws with the bill, it's easier still to find examples of companies herding workers together to bash unions on the eve of an organizing election. At a time when appeals take years and everyone knows it, at a time when the Bush-appointed majority on the National Labor Relations Board favors employers, at a time when typical workers are losing bargaining power, companies have a built-in advantage just by opposing a union. They are able to intimidate in subtle ways, sometimes without ill intent at all.
So, although it's true that federal law protects workers from threats by companies, in practice the protection is voluntary.
There is no way to glean a pattern from among the 19,946 complaints filed with the NLRB against employers in the year that ended last Sept. 30 because the board doesn't break out the complaints related to "captive audience" meetings.
"They do it in such a subtle way it's very hard to prove," said Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University.
Bronfenbrenner, who has testified and provided research to Congress on business intimidation of workers seeking to organize, said employers' opposition activities have increased in recent years, but that the number of charges filed by unions has decreased because unions believe complaints may be futile.
Futile, in a system that is basically feudal. Labor lawyer Dan Livingston argues that the whole idea of companies "owning" their employees' time stems from 16th-century English common law rather than American labor law, and should fade to history.
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