A place for answers

Why would a teacher like you support unions? We’ve asked you to answer, on your blog. But if you don’t have a blog, answer here.

E-mail me at gmail dot com (the first two characters are my initials, jd, followed by what 9×3 equals, followed by what 9×2 equals) with your response (on Tuesday, March 22, 2011) and we’ll put it up here.

What is the National Labor Relations Act?

From Francis S Midy

During the historic “moment of national insanity” with respect to teachers, unionism and the state of American education, it is fitting to reflect on what our we have carefully designed in the first half of the 2oth century in order to beef up the American value system: “The National Labor Relations Act”.

What is the National Labor Relations Act? Below is a summary.

“The National Labor Relations Act

The NLRA was enacted by Congress in 1935.  It was hailed at the time and for many years after as the Magna Carta of America labor.  Previously, employers had been free to spy on, interrogate, discipline, discharge, and blacklist union members.  But in the 1930’s workers began to organize militantly.  A great strike wave in 1933 and 1934 included citywide general strikes and factory takeovers. Violent confrontations occurred between workers trying to form unions and the police and private security forces defending the interests of anti-union employers.  Some historians believe that Congress adopted the NLRA primarily in the hopes of averting greater, possible revolutionary, labor unrest.

The NLRA guaranteed workers the right to join unions without fear of management reprisal.  It created the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to enforce this right and prohibited employers from committing unfair labor practices that might discourage organizing or prevent workers from negotiating a union contract.

The NLRA’s passage galvanized union organizing.  Successful campaigns soon followed in the automobile, steel, electrical, manufacturing, and rubber industries.  By 1945, union membership reached 35% of the work-force.  In reaction, industrialists, and other opponents of organized labor sought to weaken the NLRA.  They succeeded in 1947 with the passage of the Taft-Hartly Act, which added provisions to the NLRA allowing unions to be prosecuted, enjoined, and sued for a variety of activities, including mass picketing and secondary boycotts.

The last major revision of the NLRA occurred in 1959, when Congress imposed further restrictions on unions in the Landrum-Griffin Act.

Key Provisions

The most important sections of the NLRA are Sections 7, 8, and 9.
Section 7, is the heart of the NLRA.  It defines protected activity.  Stripped to its essential, it reads:

Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection.

Section 7 applies to a wide range of union and collective activities.  In addition to organizing, it protects employees who take part in grievances, on-the-job protests, picketing, and strikes.

Section 8 defines employer unfair labor practices.

Five types of conduct are made illegal:

• Employer interference, restraint, or coercion directed against union or collective activity (Section 8(a)(1))
• Employer domination of unions (Section 8(a)(2))
• Employer discrimination against employees who take part in union or collective activities (Section 8(a)(3))
• Employer retaliation for filing unfair-labor-practice charges or cooperating with the NLRB (Section 8(a)(4))
• Employer refusal to bargain in good faith with union representatives (Section 8(a)(5))

Threats, warnings, and orders to refrain from protected activities are forms of interference and coercion that violate Section 8(a)(1).  Disciplinary actions, such as suspensions, discharges, transfers, and demotions, violate Section 8(a)(3).  Failures to supply information, unilateral changes, refusals to hold grievance meetings, and direct dealings violate Section 8(a)(5).

Section 8 also prohibits union unfair labor practices, which include, according to legal construction, failure to provide fair representation to all members of the bargaining unit.

Section 9 provides that unions, if certified or recognized, are the exclusive representatives of bargaining unit members.  It prohibits the adjustment of employee grievances unless a union representative is given and opportunity to be present, and establishes procedures to vote on union representation.

The NLRA sets out general rights and obligation.  Enforcing the Act in particular situations is the job of the NLRB.”

 

Source URL: http://home.earthlink.net/~local1613/nlra.html

 

Ensure that the sacrifices made by our predecessors were not in vain!

[by Suzanne Donahue]

In 1968 I had just started 7th grade at Wade JHS when our teachers went out on strike. I remember being out of school until mid-November and when we came back we had to stay for an extra period each day to make up for the time we missed.

Since my house was across the street from the school, we would pass the teachers on their picket lines whenever we went out to the store or to a friend’s house.

I can still hear my mother (a founding member of ILGWU) telling me that the teachers would win because they had a very strong union and a leader who would not give up: Albert Shanker. She said they were fighting for us – their students – as well as for themselves, because they wanted us to have a good education. They couldn’t do that if they were always afraid they would loose their jobs at the whim of the mayor or local school board, as 13 teachers had been in Ocean Hill – Brownsville in May of that year.

I always knew that I wanted to be a teacher. Seeing how my teachers stuck together and fought for what they believed in only made me more determined to become one. But I had no idea of what the true cost was, things a 12 year old could never comprehend.

In September 1983 I began teaching at my Alma Mater, Walton H.S. and became a member of this incredible union. Shortly after I began teaching, I learned a great deal about the sacrifices those teachers made back in 1968.

Since they were out of work, they did not get paid. Naturally, this meant that they could not pay their bills, or their rent, or their mortgages. Some members lost their homes because of the strike, some families fell apart. Many took night jobs so they could support their families and were still out their in the morning on the picket line standing up for what they believed in.

I knew then, as I know now, that I would do whatever it takes to preserve the rights those teachers fought so hard to gain, the most important of which was due process. Ironically, here we are, 43 years later, fighting for the same thing. We can not allow our profession to be stripped of this fundamental right. If we are, we loose the ability to stand up for our own welfare and the welfare of our students. We would be at the mercy of the mayor and the DOE and whatever political agenda they are obsessed with at the moment.

I proudly served on the Executive Board of our chapter at Walton H.S. and after it closed its doors in 2008 and I began teaching at one of the small schools on the Walton campus. I am currently the Chapter Leader for my school: The High School for Teaching and the Professions.

We must do whatever it takes to ensure that the sacrifices made by our predecessors were not in vain!

Yours in Solidarity,

Suzanne Donahue