Anti-union activity is prevalent throughout the United States. What was unthinkable thirty years ago has become commonplace, as the business community has lowered its ethical standards to justify the suppression of workers’ rights.
“People have to walk through a mine field in order to organize,” says Richard Bensinger, former director of the AFL-CIO’s Organizing Institute. “It is more in vogue in management circles to brag about being non-union or to bust a union,” Bensinger claims, “than it is to respect the right to organize.”
Employees at Overnite shipping company have been on strike since October of 1999, after five years of systematic efforts by the company to undermine their joining the Teamsters union. The National Labor Relations Board has ruled against Overnite, charging the company with more than one thousand unfair labor practices, noting that they were directed by the “highest level officials” and are “highly coercive” and “have a lasting effect on election conditions.” Overnite has appealed the NLRB decision, which requires the company to pay millions of dollars …
