Posts tagged AFL-CIO Philadelphia Council
Guest column: Union democracy? Not so much
May 21, 2024 // The AFL-CIO Philadelphia Council announced GET-UP may be Philadelphia’s largest private sector union. Nonetheless, GET-UP did not secure — as some overzealous headlines suggest — an “overwhelming majority.” Yes, the 1,807-to-97 vote to unionize was undoubtedly one-sided. However, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reported 4,003 eligible voters, meaning only 45 percent of the total workforce supported unionization. Other reports suggest a lower denominator of 3,700 voters. Even then, that’s only 48 percent — clearly less than “the majority of the employees in a unit” seemingly described in the National Labor Relations Act. Yet, due to federal court decisions that strayed from the statutory text long ago, UAW only needed a simple majority