WHEREAS:

The public policy to encourage unionization for workers who desire it has been turned on its head by a succession of National Labor Relations Boards more and more tilted in favor of union busters; and

WHEREAS:

Employers in the private sector, and a growing number in the public sector, use delaying legal strategies that stall union representation elections by months, and often by years; and

WHEREAS:

Employers in the private sector discriminate against and fire large numbers of union adherents, secure in the knowledge that little or no punishment will be imposed, and the legal doctrines around so-called "mixed motive discharges" threaten to infect public sector labor relations law; and

WHEREAS:

Employers in the private sector now frequently break strikes with scabs and are being permitted by the courts to retain the scabs even when the strikers offer to return; and

WHEREAS:

This state of affairs strikes at the heart of the union movement, and threatens the security of all our gains.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That AFSCME will campaign to raise the priority of Labor Law Reform on labor's political agenda; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

That AFSCME will seek to dramatize to the public the unfairness of the current labor law and its enforcement, and the comparable unfairness under which public employees in more than two dozen states have no bargaining rights whatsoever.

SUBMITTED BY:

Bettye W. Roberts, President
Alvin D. Turner, Secretary
AFSCME Council 1707
New York, NY