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- I want to catch up to two blogs we’ve visited before: Carl Luna continues to write engagingly about the ongoing issues facing unionized grocery workers in California. And Don Jones is writing about the Employee Free Choice Act. Jones, who is a heart transplant survivor, started blogging on union issues after retiring from a job at Goodyear.
- You might have watched a bowl game and looked at graduation rates and thought the university was cheating its student athletes in some way. But you didn’t think joining the Steel Workers would be the answer did you? If only Maurice Clarett had had a union.
- Our first lady chose to read Duck for President at the annual White House Easter Egg hunt. The Bellman follows the analogies, but misses the voter fraud subplot in which ballots are found stuck to the bottom of the Vice President. Duck is an icon at my house because my son likes when I quack “Born to Be Wild” while reading the talent show scene in Dooby Dooby Moo. The first book in this series was Click Clack Moo, in which not only do the cows go on strike but the chickens engage in a secondary strike. (Awesome! but given that such actions are illiegal under the NLRA, there should be some sort of disclaimer, you know, "kids don't try this at home.")
- A low wage/high turnover employer that’s very image conscious and engages in union busting? That means threatening and even firing employees who want to have a union. This time I’m not writing about charter schools but about Starbucks. You should check out this Washington Post article simply because David Segal describes Daniel Gross as "The Norma Rae of the caramel macchiato."
Comments
While I generally agree with the sentiment of this post, I disagree with the assertion that the chickens in Click Clack Moo were somehow engaged in illegal secondary activity (as defined by the NLRA).
There is no "illegal" secondary activity when the chickens join the cows in a strike. ("CLOSED. NO MILK. NO EGGS.") Illegal "secondary" activity implies a "second" employer. For both the chickens and the cows, the object of the strike is a single employer - Farmer Brown. Both the cows and the chickens are engaged in a strike for recognition (clearly neither cows nor chickens have a union or a contract in place) and to pressure the employer for concessions. That's legal.
The cows and the chickens are free to strike for recognition, assuming they file a petition with the NLRB within 30 days. Of course, Farmer Brown is free to fire and replace them all, which is a real possibility: last I heard, Farmer Brown was furious.
Posted by: Richard | April 18, 2007 10:44 AM
That was really awesome. I'll come clean and admit I was just trying to see if I could get Kevin Carey to write a post about how the blog is now advocating for illegal acts on the part of fictitious fowl.
Posted by: Ed at AFT | April 18, 2007 11:33 AM
Whoa, hold up on the Maurice Clarett comment there. That kid was just an idiot-- an extremely talented idiot nonetheless, but an idiot. Even the steelworkers couldn't have helped Mo.
Posted by: Dr. Homeslice | April 23, 2007 09:19 PM