Section 7 of the NLRA absolutely does guarantee employees the right to refrain from union activity. However, the Act does not give employers the right to scare and bully their employees so that they don’t join a union.

Taubman would have you believe that employers merely give employees their opinion about unions. In most cases, however, that’s not true. Instead, nearly every employer facing the prospect of a union campaign will force employees into “captive audience” meetings, which employees must attend or lose their job and listen to endless anti-union rhetoric. On the other hand, when a representative of the union comes to the workplace, the employer will call the police. This is not “disseminating information.”

Captive audience meetings are not the only abusive tactic used by employers. Half of employers threaten to close (fully or partially) the facility if employees organize. In 25% of union campaigns, an employee who supports the union is fired because of his union activity. Almost three-quarters of employers hire one of the consultants in the billion-dollar “union avoidance” industry that send “consultants” directly into the worksite to intimidate workers.

Does that sound like “debate” to you?

When employees vote against the union, it’s usually because the employer’s anti-union intimidation tactics (what the right disingenously labels “debate”) have scared employees. Either workers are afraid they will lose their job if they form a union, or else they are so fearful of employer-generated conflict that they vote against the union.

If employers were truly interested in speech, debate or opinions, they would invite union organizers into the workplace to speak to employees whenever the employer does. If the employer is going to hold employees captive (and let there be no doubt, the union has no such power to do so), why not give them both side of the story? If there is any imbalance of information, it is that employees are inundated with anti-union messages.

There are undoubtedly some workers opposed to unions. Some have personal beliefs that are incompatible with collective bargaining. Others have religious objections. Maybe some have had a bad experience. Nonetheless, national surveys reveal that the majority of workers would join a union if they could; and yet less than 10% do. That’s compelling evidence that employees’ free choice is being thwarted by imbalanced anti-union campaigns.

Dont be fooled. Taubman and his organization do not support “debate,” “choice,” “speech” or “freedom.” The effort to strike down laws that disallow spending public money on pro-or anti-union messages is nothing more than an effort by employers to regain the power to spend public money on their intimidating actions. It has little to nothing to do with free speech.

Imagine if polluters had a “voice” in whether citizens could even form a coalition to advocate that the polluter clean up its act. Surely the polluter should have a voice in what clean-up policies are implemented–just as an employer should have a voice in collective bargaining–but no one would suggest that the polluter should have control over whehter the envoronmental coalition can even form in the first place. Similarly, employers have no right to determine whether workers organize as a union. The employers’ voice becomes relevant only in determining the working conditions of the workplace through collective bargaining.

Section 7 of the Act (29 USC 157) grants employees the right to join or form the union of their choosing. The purpose of the NLRA is not to protect employer freedom to resist unions, but rather to empower workers to form unions in the face of employer opposition. Lest there be any doubt, consider the Act’s statutory purposes in section 1–conveniently ignored by Bush and his current appointees to the NLRB.