Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/914212
15 Q4 2017 / CINEMONTAGE Mostly, these attacks have consisted of the expansion of "right to work" policies, but have also included measures introducing other obstacles to workers seeking to organize, to stay organized, and to have real clout in their workplaces. As injurious as these state-level rollbacks of workers' rights have been, it is clear that the enemies of labor intended them to serve as dress rehearsals for current efforts to effect policy change on the federal stage. It's not just Janus. Legislation now before Congress (HR 785 and S 545) would extend "right to work" provisions to private-sector employment in all those places where agency shops remain legal. President Trump has voiced support of this legislation. Were it to pass — and it is easy to imagine passage in the current political climate and in the anticipated aftermath of Janus — the legal landscape for private-sector unions in California and New York would become just as hostile as the legal landscape in Georgia and Louisiana. As if that weren't enough gloom for one forecast, "right to work" isn't the only legal threat facing organized labor on the national stage. Also before Congress is the deceptively titled Employee Rights Act (HR 2723 and S1774). Should that bill become law, it would impose a host of provisions intended to hobble unions, including requiring regular recertification elections for existing union workplaces, in which any employee who abstains from voting is counted automatically as a vote against unionization. Other proposed legislation would reverse National Labor Relations Board decisions perceived as friendly to labor. And the Senate has already approved President Trump's NLRB appointees; their backgrounds telegraph that they intend to undo the modest policy advances unions made at the board during the Obama administration. The anti-unionists have an obvious plan: taking a bulldozer to the legal landscape upon which labor relations have been constructed over the course of decades. Through all three branches of government, they intend to discourage union membership, limit bargaining, make it more difficult for non-union workers to organize, and create obstacles for union workers seeking only to remain organized. These measures are engineered to accelerate the erosion of unions' clout at negotiating tables and in the larger political sphere. Our opponents' agenda is clear; how about ours? If this were a movie trailer for a superhero picture, this would be the point at which we cut from shots of menacing baddies to an image of our cape-festooned savior making a dramatic entrance. This is where you step in. And, thankfully, you are stepping in, in large numbers. Our Local 700 fall membership meetings in LA and New York had huge turnouts, with folks crowding together in a standing-room-only union hall to take ownership of their organization and discuss what needs to be done to improve the working lives of post-production professionals. And new members are coming aboard; our recent campaign-winning union recognition at Vice Media in Brooklyn will boost the size of our New York membership by almost a quarter. In addition to sheer numbers, our win at Vice draws into the union the energy and perspectives of many younger post-production employees whose workplace looks a lot like the probable future of our industry. Lawmakers, judges and government officials can institute policies that are profoundly disruptive to the way unions do business. Given these threats, we can't expect to survive, let alone flourish, if we stick to business as usual. But a commitment to membership engagement and grassroots democracy will allow us to adapt as the legal structures on which collective bargaining has been built are under attack. They may break our bureaucracies; we can't let them break our spirit. Our union's strength doesn't derive from any politician or government official. Nor, for that matter, does it arise from the staff on our payroll, or even our elected leadership. Our power comes from each and every member and the commitment every member makes to safeguard her or his sisters' and brothers' welfare. Whatever rulings or laws they engineer, labor's opponents cannot change our conviction to stand up for one another. With that conviction, we can weather these attacks. f CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 GET TING ORGANIZED Vice employees celebrate winning union recognition with the Editors Guild and Writers Guild of America, East, at the Radegast Hall and Biergarten in Brooklyn. Photo by Dave Sanders