Workers board hears union-busting testimony
Yawu Miller
Marie Chery doesn’t need much of an introduction.
“I’m the one they say used voodoo to win the election,”
she says.
Chery, a Seventh Day Adventist, says she is insulted by the allegations
spread by management at Harborside Healthcare’s Wakefield
nursing home. But she is equally outraged by the implicit assumption
that an organizer would have to resort to coercion to persuade workers
to sign union cards.
“We organized ourselves because we wanted to be treated like
human beings,” she said. “We went through all the necessary
steps to form a union and we won. Now we want Harborside to respect
our choice.”
Chery gave testimony October 20 before an international delegation
of workers’ rights and human rights advocates at City Hall
called American Rights at Work. The panel members heard testimony
from Chery and other workers detailing their efforts to fight for
better working conditions.
American Rights at Work was founded two years ago by a coalition
of unions and other groups concerned about a widely-perceived erosion
of workers’ rights to organize.
Those testifying spoke of their employers’ efforts to undermine
unionizing and their efforts to persuade government regulators to
uphold their right to organize.
While Annette Brown said workers who supported a failed bid to unionize
the workforce at Brockton Hospital have been intimidated, subjected
to surveillance and unfairly disciplined.
“Many of the employees are immigrants and were afraid to speak
out for their rights,” Brown said. “We want the employers
to be afraid enough of the law to allow us to unionize.”
In Chery’s case, the workers successfully held their election
and voted overwhelmingly in favor of a union, but Harborside Healthcare
contested their victory, claiming Chery intimidated her mostly Haitian
cohort of co-workers with threats of voodoo.
The American Rights at Work members said the union-busting techniques
being employed in the United States were not unique to this country.
“The anti-union campaigns are no different from what you see
in Guatemala or El Salvador or in the rest of the world,”
said Guatemalan human rights activist Maria Adela Mejia Perez. “The
corporations are very well-organized when it comes to getting rid
of unions.”
American Rights at Work members, however, said they did not expect
to hear of an anti-union climate in the United States — a
country that often holds other countries to high human rights standards.
“It’s deeply troubling to hear that in the United States
there are people who are in fear,” said Veronique Marleau,
a former member of the Canadian Relations Board.
“Having worked in other countries, particularly those in Africa
and Asia, it’s concerning when you go to these countries and
rely on international standards for their workers. These are standards
promoted by the United States elsewhere.”
In addition to their hearing, the board toured several job sites
in Massachusetts, including a fish processing plant in New Bedford
where a largely Guatemalan workforce works for low wages in often
dangerous conditions.
“People are losing fingers,” said Russ Davis, an organizer
for Massachusetts Jobs With Justice. “They don’t get
paid for overtime. It’s really nasty stuff.”
The point of the tour, according to Davis, is to shed light on the
conditions of some of the state’s lowest-paid workers.
“We’re turning over rocks to show people what the job
market is like in Massachusetts,” he said “Most people
think it’s wrong that people are abused at work. Most people
think people should have the right to organize. Most people would
be appalled if they heard these stories.”
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