Foundries Fearful of New Unionization Drives

摘要

Legislation is being introduced this month to change the rules by which unions organize workers at private companies, obviously including workers in the metalcasting industry. The proposed law, called the "Employee Free Choice Act" by its supporters, would let unions organize a company's workforce in two different ways: Under the current National Labor Relations Board election rules, employers can insist on a strictly-supervised, secret-ballot election, the outcome of which is decided by a majority of the votes cast. Under the proposed legislation, to win recognition rights at a company all a union would need to organize a company's workforce would be "authorization cards" from a majority of the workers there. This is known as the "card check" process. Foundries and their suppliers would have to honor the choice -- which would be made by the union, not their own employees.