As the Massachusetts AFL-CIO points out, "There are now thousands of these firms across the country, and their rise has a direct correlation with the decline in union density from 29 percent of US workers in 1964 to 13 percent today."
In one case, in the mid-1990s, Baltimore Gas and Electric paid a union-busting firm a staggering $40 million to fight an organizing effort.
It's the job of these union-busting firms to break up union organizing drives and to literally scare workers away from voting for a union.
These are the thugs that come in, and give workers threatening presentations on the dangers of joining a union. These are the thugs that make workers sit through hours and hours of videos that demonize union membership.
They recruit supervisors to persuade workers not to join unions, and drum up as much fear and intimidation as they can.
Between the spread of "right to work" laws and the rapid growth of union-busting firms, it's no surprise that unions are experiencing their lowest membership rates in history, and that there's such animosity towards the labor movement.
In a recent interview with the New Republic, Rich Yeselson, a seasoned labor movement strategist, said that, "in no other advanced country is the entire political economy as relentlessly opposed to unionization as it is here. The US has the most hostile anti-union management/ownership class, and corresponding conservative politicians and media to assist it, in the advanced world."
It's time for that to change. It's time for unions to once again become a major economic and political player in the US.
And that's starts by bringing back card-check.
Prior to the passing of the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, joining a union was easy. Really easy. It was as easy as putting your name on a card and checking a box. That was your vote to join a union.
It's because card-check was such an easy process for joining a union that corporate thugs today are so opposed towards bringing it back.
They're afraid that with card-check, unions will once again be major political and economic players.
Well, it's time to make the corporate thugs afraid.
It's time to bring back card-check, and rebuild the American economy, one union at a time.
Call your members of Congress, and tell them that Americans want card-check and we want it now!
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