Agree or not, it's good to hear views

At a time when many Americans choose to be exposed only to opinions with which they agree, I still enjoy talking with those who see issues in a different light.

And given my opinion of unions - namely, that for all the good they did in the 20th century, they now hurt America by demanding too much, giving up too little, fostering a sense of entitlement, and conditioning members to fear competition - this means occasionally checking in with Beth Shulman. A lawyer, author, and former vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, she is a senior analyst with the Russell Sage Foundation and a true believer in the power of unions to improve people's lives - especially in tough economic times. Our conversation was about the Employee Free Choice Act before Congress, a hotly contested bill allowing workers to register their desire to join a union by simply signing a card as opposed to an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.

Employers want to defeat it, claiming it would essentially eliminate secret ballots. Shulman insists that workers can still have secret ballots but contends the current system is broken because employers, through intimidation, effectively have "veto power." I won't deny that some employers might improperly try to discourage workers from organizing. It's just that I see the employee like a tugboat caught between two icebergs - the employer and the union. It's easy to get crushed. I asked Shulman whether employees couldn't be just as intimidated by union supporters as by their boss. Let's just say it wasn't her favorite question. "The employer has total control over the workplace," Shulman said. "They can fire you anytime they want. They can change your schedule. This idea that there is equal intimidation is just ridiculous, truly ridiculous." She claimed that the reality of union organizing isn't at all like what many folks imagine. There is this idea of big union organizers standing around," she said. "But often, it is workers organizing other workers. It's not some big outside force coming in."

Wait a minute. America is a big country with lots of different workplaces and lots of different unions. Certainly Shulman didn't really want to go out on a limb and say that pressure and intimidation by unions never happens. She said she didn't, but insisted that safeguards prevent unions from pushing too hard. Besides, she added, what is important is that the process is fair. "If there really is a free way of people deciding without intimidation, without any coercion or whatever," she said, "then I'm happy - whatever that vote is."

Finally, to make her point about how bad the current system is, Shulman mentioned the case of a poultry processing plant in North Carolina. "The employers fired and harassed people," she said. "They brought in the immigration service to scare immigrants." That sounds familiar. Calling in"la migra" to raid a workplace was an old trick of the United Farm Workers Union. Anyone can pick up the phone and call Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And once those illegal immigrant workers get deported, it doesn't matter who made the call. Shulman didn't defend the practice. "If it happened, that kind of behavior is unconscionable," she said. "Period."

How about that? We finally agree on something.

© 2009, The San Diego Union-Tribune