Professor Gordon Lafer of the University of Oregon, who spent over ten years as a union organizer before entering academic life, follows up his drama-filled  performance during the House Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions with a July 10, 2007, report on on the NLRB election process.  The Professor’s report was commissioned by American Rights at Work, one of many union-funded policy groups.  The report, bearing the not-so-academic title “Neither Free Nor Fair:  The Subversion of Democracy Under National Labor Relations Board Elections,” is 74 pages long including appendices and contains such undispassionate topic headings as:

• There is no such thing as a secret ballot under NLRB elections; and
  
• A Toothless Law: Absence of Penalties Encourages Lawbreaking

Professor Lafer concludes his pseudo-scholarly work with the following statement in support of the Employee Free Choice Act:

America’s employees are subject to a regime of bribes, bullying, threats, terminations, delays, enforced propaganda, and political gag orders that we would not accept for the citizens of any foreign nation. The fact that this is happening in our own country makes the need for democratic reform all the more urgent.

The full report can be read on the website maintained by Professor Lafer’s generous patron.
 
Meanwhile, in recent news from the real world:

• Workers at the Avenue Nursing Home in Schenectady, New York voted July 13, 2007, in an NLRB secret ballot election to be represented by the Service Employees International Union;
  

• Employees of Florida Transportation Services, voted on July 5, 2007, in an NLRB secret ballot election for representation by the International Longshoremen's Association;

• An NLRB Administrative Law Judge on June 29, 2007, rejected efforts by Trump Plaza in Atlantic City to overturn a union election victory obtained in March 2007;
  

• On May 20, 2007, union members ratified a first contract agreed-to by  Sears covering a group of 200 appliance servicemen in Colorado; and
  

• On July 3, 2007, a federal judge in Minnesota granted an NLRB request for an injuction requiring the pre-trial reinstatement of 19 workers allegedly fired for union organizing.