> How many workers get fired shortly after they begin approaching
> their co-workers and asking about possible union support?
This AFL-CIO factsheet gives some of the numbers:
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutunions/joinunions/howjoin/employerinterference.cfm
As noted, some 25% of private-sector employers illegally fire at least one worker for union activity during an organizing campaign. This number comes from Kate Bronfenbrenner, I believe. Note that the number of employers who hire anti-union consultants is the mirror image, 75%. I think that this is hardly an accident. The consultants have figured out all kinds of ways to intimidate workers without the employer having to resort to obvious illegality or to fire workers outright.
My sense is that Yoshie is right about the relative protective value of being vocally pro-union. It is my understanding that when they do fire workers, employers in these campaigns are especially likely to fire "3s" (i.e., fence-sitters) rather than vocally pro-union people, not only because it has the requisite terror-inducing effect but because it is so much more difficult in those cases to prove that the employer fired the worker because of the union drive. And of course, even in cases where workers can prove that they were fired because of union activity, it could be many months before the NLRB orders them reinstated (with unemployment and any other income deducted from the backpay to which workers would otherwise be entitled!). And then employers -- particularly if the union drive fails -- can always find an excuse to fire that person again.
But it's also true that the people who are most likely to be fired during a union drive are supervisors, whether these be people who show insufficient zeal in campaigning against the union, or "problem supervisors" that the boss fires to try to demonstrate to the workers that he's "fixing your problems."
- - - - - - - - - - John Lacny http://www.johnlacny.com
Tell no lies, claim no easy victories