Wednesday, December 1, 2010

just the facts

myths: what the News-Press uses instead of facts..

case in point: Scott Sheepleton's ASSertion on the front page that the Employee Free Choice Act would "do away with secret votes during union elections"...as others point out, this is simply not true, but a tactic used by the News-Press and other wealthy anti-worker interests to try to bust unionizing attempts at the workplace..the News-Press is a glowing example why labor law reform is needed!!
 
The Problem: Employers Silence Workers Who Attempt to Form Unions
Under the current labor law system, employers like the Wendy McCuckoo's News-PRess often use a combination of legal and illegal methods to silence employees who attempt to form unions and bargain for better wages and working conditions. When faced with organizing drives, 25 percent of employers fire at least one pro-union worker; 51 percent threaten to close a worksite if the union prevails; and, 91 percent force employees to attend one-on-one anti-union meetings with their supervisors.
 
The difference under the EFCA is that employers no longer have the power to decide if the unionization attempt will go to a secret ballot election. Under the EFCA, that decision would be in the hands of the workers, as it should be. And the employers will no longer have the ability to use the election process
to delay, obstruct and intimidate workers in an effort to resist organizing efforts. As the organization American Rights at Work describes it, "[t]he Employee Free Choice Act makes no change to the current union election process. It simply amends the law about majority sign-up to put the choice of how to form a union in workers' hands, not their employers'." But it's not surprising to see the corporations twisting the facts to try to scare workers, the public, and Congress into opposing the EFCA. More often than not, they tend to see the workers as disposable commodities rather than valuable resources. And organized labor poses a threat to their current perception of unmitigated power.
and this:
the News-Press plays a little game using the same guy to write the Our Opinion and Guest Opinion spots...and that guy is....Lanny Ebenstein, who they now say was former president of the Santa Barbara Board of Education! was he??? he was past prez of the Taxpayers Asso, but not the school board...Lanny's latest was about the armory..everyone agrees it should belong to the city..they should just take it, but my question is why the News-Press hasn't done a story on Lanny's pot house/slum lord issues in Eureka, California...Nipper, can you answer that simple question..why hasn't the News-Press done a story on Lanny's pot house problems in Eureka?
wait, I'll be dogged
...it looks like they finally did a story with some reality content!! Congrats for reaffirming some journalistic integrity at the News-Press with the hiring of newbie reporter Scott Steeple!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wikipedia has an entire page titled Labor Relations at the Santa Barbara News-Press. Scott Steepleton is mentioned a few times. Of particular interest is the comment that "ALJ Anderson found management representative Scott Steepleton's testimony in this hearing to be not credible, which is the third time in three NLRB hearings before three different ALJs that Steepleton has been found to be not truthful." (NLRB is the National Labor Relations Board and ALJ stands for administrative law judge).