Caption: PRX default Piece image
PRX default Piece image 

Bush vs. Labor

From: Dick Meister
Length: 03:07

President Bush's appointees to the National Labor Relations Board are going all out to deny wolrkers their legal rights. Read the full description.

Default-piece-image-0 The National Labor Relations Board is legally mandated to guarantee working people the right to engage freely and fully in union activities. But the appointees of President Bush who now control the board are denying millions of workers that vital right. That's a major reason that barely 12 percent of U.S. workers are unionized, despite surveys showing that more than four times that percentgage want to be in unions.

To hear the full audio, sign up for a free PRX account or log in.

More from Dick Meister

Piece image

Good News For Our Neediest Workers (04:03)
From: Dick Meister

Commentary: More than 850,000 minimum wage workers in 10 states will be getting raises in the new year.
Piece image

Home Care Workers Need Presidential Help (02:21)
From: Dick Meister

It's time for President Obama to help the country's home care workers.
Piece image

Many Profit From Bowl Games. But Not The Players (04:01)
From: Dick Meister

Commentary: Student athletes get very little of the millions generated by college football's bowl games.
Piece image

A Free Choice For US Workers (04:13)
From: Dick Meister

Commentary: It's time to enact a proposed law that would give workers the absolute right to unionization.
Piece image

Labor's Big Day (02:45)
From: Dick Meister

Labor was a big election winner.
Caption: PRX default Piece image

We All Need A Higher Minimum Wage (04:33)
From: Dick Meister

Raising the minimum wage should be a key post-election priority.
Piece image

Labor's Major Election Challenge (02:41)
From: Dick Meister

Commentary: Labor faces its greatest election challenge in California.
Piece image

Missing A Vital Election Message (03:13)
From: Dick Meister

Repealing the union-crippling Taft-Hartley Act should have been a prime issue throughout the election campaign.
Piece image

A Farm Worker Champion (02:56)
From: Dick Meister

Commentary: John Steinbeck was a great champion of farm labor.
Piece image

We're Providing The Wrong Kind Of New Jobs (03:01)
From: Dick Meister

Commentary: Although we're recovering from the Great Recession, most of the new jobs are low-paying, non-union jobs.

Piece Description

The National Labor Relations Board is legally mandated to guarantee working people the right to engage freely and fully in union activities. But the appointees of President Bush who now control the board are denying millions of workers that vital right. That's a major reason that barely 12 percent of U.S. workers are unionized, despite surveys showing that more than four times that percentgage want to be in unions.

Broadcast History

None.

Transcript

The National Labor Relations Board has become sick joke. The law says the NLRB should guarantee working people the chance to freely take part in union activities. But not with George Bush as president, they don?t. Under Bush, the board has been going all out to deny workers their union rights.

Imagine: , the Bush appointees who control the NLRB ruled that an employer can order workers not to fraternize on or off-duty with co-workers or become overly friendly with them. . That sure would make it tough for workers to get together to talk about forming a union, wouldn?t it? Which , of course, is just what the labor board had in mind.

Another decision by Bush?s NLRB has made unionization pretty much impossible for the millions of temporary workers who make up a big part of today?s labor force. Clinton appointees controlled the board in 2000, when it ruled that temporary employee...
Read the full transcript

Timing and Cues

Intro: Commentator Dick Meister says the law that's sipposed to guarantee union rights is being used to deny them ...

Outro: Dick Meister is a veteran labor journalist.