|
Feature
Story (continued) |
|
Conversation
with
Jerry Fishbein
UNITE
Joint Board, New England |
|
| Free
to Speak ... Assemble ... Organize |
Organizing in this part of the country is
really difficult. We’ve been blessed with a whole lot
of
plant closings and shutdowns. The fear of
moving and threats of moving are real here, and have frozen a
lot of organizing. We’ve had some successful neutrality
agreement campaigns. And I think that may be the closest we’ve
come to some of the points raised in the paper.
What’s confirmed for me again and again is
that when people are given the option of having a union and
they’re not threatened and terrorized, they overwhelmingly
go for it. They know the union makes a big difference.
ORGANIZING AS A CIVIL
RIGHT
One of the things the AFL-CIO has started to
talk about is organizing as a civil right. This paper starts
to really go into that and explains more how to put it into
play.
I think it makes a lot of sense, and now the
question is, How do we do it? If it’s a legal interpretation
we’re trying to change, who’s going to challenge it?
People who are doing organizing ought to be
talking about these issues. We also need to find people who
have the resources and the ability to mount the kind of
challenge that this would involve.
Next: A Conversation
with Richard Moser ->
<- Previous: A Conversation
with Enid Eckstein
|
