Troubles for labor.

On news that Jim Webb won't publicly voice his support for EFCA, Steve Greenhouse reports on failed organization efforts at Norton Audobon Hospital in Louisville, KY. The story illustrates the need for EFCA, and why Greenhouse is one of the more important reporters on labor in the US.

Greenhouse recounts how organization efforts failed. Subtely, he says that it's symptiomatic of the barriers organizers and workers face. After a preponderance of nurses voiced their support for unionizing in '94, the NLRB election and the fabled "secret ballot" demonstrated the complete opposite of the signed union cards. Why, might you ask? Here's what transpired:

"In the Louisville fight, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the nurses had changed their minds about the union in 1994 mainly because management conducted an often illegal campaign against unionization.

An N.L.R.B. judge concluded that management had committed so many serious violations of the law — firing and demoting nurses, threatening to close the hospital if the union prevailed — that it made the possibility of a 'free choice by the employees slight to nonexistent.'

Ann Hurst, a pro-union nurse who the board said was illegally demoted, still remembers. “They came after us with a vengeance,” she said. 'They created a lot of fear about what would happen if we had a union.'”

Clear? Intimidation and punitive measures contributed to the failure of the union. Not worker disinterest. One of my students asked me why union's don't do anything any longer, and this is the reason. Organizers and pro-union employers face overwhelming harrassment and obstruction by employers who can get away with it and impede plans for unions. Labor is no longer given the chance to grow, which is why EFCA matters for the fate of unionism in the US.