From planting drugs on an innocent employee and other frightening forms of harassment, Jerry Santen has experienced what employers can do to stop employees from forming an union.

He doesn’t want others to experience what he has witnessed.

Tuesday night, at UAW Local 685, Santen, of United Brotherhood of Carpenters Local 615, was the guest speaker at a roundtable discussion on the Employee Free Choice Act. The event was sponsored by the Kokomo/Howard County Young Democrats.

If the EFCA is approved by federal politicians, it would guarantee employees the right to choose a bargaining representative either through a majority sign-up or a ballot-election process.

The choice of whether to join a union would be with the employee and not the employer.

“You have to have someone representing and protecting workers,” said Charles Eltringham, who attended the roundtable with a co-worker. “I believe it is a right to join a union.”

According to Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO’s secretary-treasurer, union busting is a $4 billion industry in the U.S., and opponents are funding a $200 million campaign to defeat EFCA.

As a result, Santen said the time for union membership is now.

“The experiences I’ve witnessed have not been good ones,” said Santen, an officer on the Kokomo Human Rights Commission, who currently serves as 615’s organizer in Kokomo and Lafayette. “Employees don’t know how bad they’ve been treated and by the time they get to me, the conditions are so bad and things are at a boiling point.

“They have union-busting outfits that spend big money to stop people from organizing. They really do some nasty stuff if they hear employees want to form a union.”

In addition to speakers, attendees were given handouts on how to contact their political representatives to voice support for EFCA.

“You hear about employees having to go to one-on-one meetings with their bosses and get threatened with being fired,” said Kaitlin DeCero, EFCA’s Indiana Communications Director. “They have no support. This is more than about wages, it’s about having a voice in the workplace.

“Wal-Mart doesn’t have unions. Their officials say they are driving the bus and they don’t want anyone else to have the wheel. [Without unions] employees are subject to harassment and they have no recourse. Unions are very important. If you don’t have them, there are no guarantees.”

Although his organization sponsored the event aimed at non-union employees in the hotel and restaurant industries, Will Howard also understands what it means to work at a place without union backing and be subjected to unfair treatment from an employer.

“There is a strength and security that comes from being in a group,” said Howard, the vice president for the Young Democrats. “We have to inform the public of the tools they have and the ability they have to form a union.

“Indiana is a right-to-work state. With the way the economy is now, there is very little job security and they can cut you off at anytime. I was unfairly fired from a job that didn’t have a union. This really hits home with me.”

• K.O. Jackson is the Tribune’s business writer. He can be reached at (765) 854-6739 or via e-mail kirven.jackson@kokomotribune.com

Employee Free Choice Act

• Requires employers to bargain with a union on the basis of card-check recognition, that is, when a majority of employees sign authorization cards stating they want to be represented by a union;

• Provides for mediation and arbitration for a first contract so that employers cannot drag out negotiations and then try to decertify the union; and

• Increases monetary penalties for employer violations for the National Labor Relations Act.

• Helps restore the rights of workers to organize and bargain collectively without employer coercion and intimidation.

Source: UAW