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States Make Anti-Union, Preemptive Strike Against EFCA
4 States to Debate Anti-Union Ballot Measure as Congress Stalls on Employee Free Choice Act
PHOENIX - With Washington silent for now on legislation championed by unions, the debate is playing out instead in the states.
With a measure approved Wednesday by its Republican-controlled Legislature, Arizona became the fourth state that will ask voters this year to undercut proposed federal legislation aimed at making it easier for workers to unionize. Arizona voters will decide in November whether the state constitution should require a secret ballot for workers deciding whether to create a union; South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah residents will be asked similar questions.
If passed, the secret ballot initiatives would have little immediate effect because federal law already allows employers to require a secret ballot.
Rather, the ballot measures are an attempt to pre-emptively undermine the proposed federal law known officially as the Employee Free Choice Act - dubbed "card check" by opponents.
EFCA would allow a majority of employees to create a union by signing a card. Unions say workers, not their employers, should get to decide how to form a union.
Businesses have the advantage in a union election because management has unfettered access to employees and can intimidate them by changing work schedules and assignments or threatening to fire them, said Bill Samuel, government affairs director for the AFL-CIO.
Labor laws are outdated, and employers have learned to exploit them to thwart union organizing efforts, he said.
"Employers have turned it into such an adversarial process," Samuel said. "It's no longer both sides standing up before a crowd and making their case."
Businesses say expansion of the public card-signing process would allow labor organizers to pressure workers into joining.
"You're denying them the privacy and security of the private ballot," said Glenn Spencer, executive director of the Work Force Freedom Initiative at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
The issue has stalled on Capitol Hill, but businesses worry congressional Democrats will bring it up in a lame duck session after the midterm elections.
It's not clear whether the federal law would trump the states' secret ballot guarantees, and both sides agree the matter is likely to end up in court.
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27 Comments so far
Show AllThank goodness they are stalled.
Freedom of Choice Act my foot. Simply a ploy to take away the secret ballot that democracy is founded on. Anyone supporting this farce should be ashamed.
Wiping out the secret vote and establishing a de facto Union without even taking a vote is all it amounts too. Only liars and hacks can deny it.
well said, unions (well most unions) are the only check left on corporate power. Corporations are going after unions by eroding their rights and draining them of members (union dues). It is times like these that a necessary evil is needed such as Hoffa.
I am not sure if you understand the comment you replied to. He seems to be saying that unions should not have the ability to organize easily, Whereas you say "well said," and then imply that unions should be protected.
No, I am pretty sure I read Mightymights comments correctly. I believe that Mightymight is referring to the attempt to take that right away.
pablo30, mightymite would be out of character if he supported employee rights to decide how to form a union. What right do you think mightymite is defending? I thought it was clear he was defending the right of employers to require secret ballots, calling it "the American Way". But really the American way would be to let employees decide how they want to organize. A fact of which mightymite clearly is ignorant. Mightymite, employee free choice means just that. So, are you taking liberties with facts, or simply suffering from sloppy thinking?
Pablo30, do you understand the EFCA? It gives the employees the right to decide if they want to form a union by secret ballot (a process that gives employers time to threaten and dismiss employees favoring a union - and they have a history of doing just that) or by signing a union card and if 51% of them sign it, the union is formed. That's how it was done in the past and in the movie Norma Rae (a true story). Can't happen today, and when I talk with retail employees about a union, many of the older ones and all the younger ones love it. At the same time they are very afraid of management finding out how they feel.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
You are correct I misread Mightymights comment. I am a union Chapter leader and I believe that unions are our only hope. Either way Mightymight is entitled to his or her opinion. If you do not agree engage mightymight in a dialogue but do not simply dismiss that individual for difference of opinion.
Card check certification of a union means that a majority of the workforce has already indicated that they want a union by signing the membership cards.
Nothing anti-american about that unless you're on of those hyper-individualistic (read selfish) libertarian types.
Sounds like you're anti-union, mighty mite, and your bellowing about democracy is a feeble attempt to draw attention from the fact that being anti EFCA is essentially being anti-union.
mightymite sez: "Wiping out the secret vote and establishing a de facto Union without even taking a vote is all it amounts too. Only liars and hacks can deny it."
***
Bravo! Well played, sir!
To not only jump in with the first comment, but then to pre-empt any possible dissent by labeling all critics as "liars and hacks" is a brilliant stroke. I can just see Minister Rove wiping a tear of joy from his eye.
Of course, you left out the part where more than half of the employees would need to sign on to the creation of the "de facto Union", which is sorta democratic. But don't mind me, I'm just a hack. Or maybe a liar. I can never remember which.
You just might be both! Oh horrors...that it should be 'easy' to form a union, whatever next....unions backing universal health care.....dreadful. That workers should have a say in wages and working conditions; really undemocratic. Seriously though...lets just for Mightymite's entertainment argue that Unions are some sort of bacteria. This bacteria will only grow on a nourishing media. Such a media is provided by profit hungry draconian employers/corporations who relate to workers as expendable resources at best and exploitable mindless machines at worst. Take away this culture of exploitation and hey presto no need for a union. So dear employer provide a well run, compassionate, employee supporting company and you will not see a nasty old union knocking on your door. The fact that there are so very few of these establishments means the culture exists for unions to grow.
Since Ronnie Raygun decimated the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) in 1981 after it went on strike for better wages and working conditions, the unions have been demonized and emasculated.
Now, thanks to Republicans and Democratic lickspittle, who are bribed by corporations, workers are without benefits such as insurance, paid vacations, overtime pay, guaranteed hours, etc. that were commonplace three decades ago. Many workers are forced to work two or three part-time jobs so they can provide for their families. And still, the rightwing zealots who control the Congress and The Whore House think those, who aren't in the top two percent income level, are not worth the time of day.
That Taylor law needs to be removed asap.
If I recall correctly, the PATCO strike was not about wages, but about the need for more workers. I knew several air traffic controllers at the time, and they said that the 20 hour days were killing them, and they needed more people. They wanted to be able to have a life beyond the control tower.
Reagan gave them one, all right. He made sure they never worked in their field again. And the thing is that we have NO MORE air traffic controllers today than we did then. We're not training enough to replace the ones that are now getting ready for retirement. Look for the results of Reagan's love of the common man to be kicking us in the crotch for many, many years to come. Not to count W's gifts that just keep on giving.
Come on, how can you be so uninformed. Where is our Constitution does it say you
are to receive: insurance, paid vacations, guaranteed hours. You work for the employer he does not work for you. You work, get paid. If an employer chooses to offer more benefits (things that are in addition to your pay)be thankful. If not, realize that you are still being paid. And to state that workers are without overtime pay is crazy. Hourly workers are paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours in a week. Mandated by law.
It is time for this country to realize that the days of handouts are done. Look what has happened. We overpaid unskilled, uneducated workers for too many years. They received compensation (pay and benefits) way more than their worth to the employer.
Now it is starting to finally affect the economy. Businesses can no longer expand, no longer have the capital because for too long their labor costs were too high. In the days of easy credit that was not a problem. Now everyone has to live within their means, businesses included. One way that a business lives within its means is to pay a worker their true worth to the company. Remember people, you work for the company, not the union. No company, no money. No union.......still have the company. Unions need to go, have outlived their usefulness. http://unionsmustgo.wordpress.com/
Freely formed labor unions are only for free countries. Amerika no longer applies. I wonder how the business community would react to a national government run union like Mexico has? I would bet that type of union would be supported with gusto! This new condom government union would be great for giving you the feeling of protection while you are being violently raped.
"It's not clear whether the federal law would trump the states' secret ballot guarantees, and both sides agree the matter is likely to end up in court."
Workers humbly asking bosses for permission to form a union the bosses like: only in America.
This is a very important practical democratic matter. In the USA workers negotiating for work conditions is in practice almost outlawed. Compare to Europe and see how pathetic the US union efforts are.
Unionizing freely is an important ingredient for a free world. The real state of the world and unions shows the (small) degree the US is free.
The USA has become the world's gulag. Not much "freedom" left, even if someone still remembers how that feels and what that is.
The history of unions in the US is dismal.
Smarter,Your comment summarizes my feelings the best. I think people like mightymite if he's not a troll or company management must be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. Mightymite, did you know the most direct form of democracies run like this: "At x time on x day in x place, if you wish to vote and participate, come raise your hand yea or nay. We'll all count together and deliver as a committee the results to the next community until all the votes of all participants are tabulated out in the open." No stolen elections, you don't like the choices stay home, and elections are held as often as necessary so issues are handled in a timely manner. THAT is REAL democracy, not the farce that passes here as representative democracy in the shambles that's left of our republic.
Removed comment
American unions are all for the Employee Free Choice Act which would allow a union local to be formed if 51% or more of the workers sign a membership card. Employers could no longer demand a secret ballot election.
This is called the Card Checkoff (beam me up :) method. It makes it easier to organize a union.
Mighty Mite opposes allowing Card Check off as the method of certifying a union. This is considered an anti-union position within the labor movement.
So if you support unions, support the Employee Free Choice Act.
Eat the fucking rich, before they eat you!
SLAVERYINAMERIKASLAVERYINAMERIKASLAVERYINAMERIKASLAVERYINAMERIKA+
I'll believe this law when I see it. Even if by some unforseen miracle it were to be past, it would probably have some Catch 22 that would allow the employers to manage and profit from the unions.
With the upcoming elections in November one would think that the CTW and AFL-CIO would be demanding from candidates their full support for the Employee Free Choice Act. Unfortunatley organized labor behaves as if the Democratic Party cannot be pressured to do the right thing. Why?
Until the labor movement in the U.S. comes to the understanding that the Democrats need labor more than labor needs the Democrats, nothing changes. In most industrialized nations the right to organize a union is a given as is outlined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In most industrialized nations workers have their own political parties whether they be communist, socialist, anarchist or any combination of the three. Here we are stuck with the jealous step child of the rich and corporate elite! Again I ask why??
With the worst economic crisis in the U.S. since the Great Depression it is time to rethink our values, our strategies and our loyalties. Begging and hoping that the party of the capitalist class will take care of us... well it's a proven failure!
Labor needs another Jimmy Hoffa this may sound insane but people like Hoffa are necessary. The Union leaders of today have no spine.
Labor needs another Jimmy Hoffa this may sound insane but people like Hoffa are necessary. The Union leaders of today have no spine.
THE SOLUTION IS READY, WAITING FOR A FEW GOOD FOLKS TO HIT THE START BUTTON
As we see the flight of U.S. capital to foreign lands, i.e. Asia to support wage slave jobs which starves the U.S. labor, its unions, towns, villages, institutions, of net positive cash flow, we sit dumbly on our butts, wondering how we got into this economic/political/social mess. There is a solution -- the worker cooperative.
We need to replace the top-down-capitalism practiced by the cartel of the super-rich, with bottom-up-capitalism practiced by worker cooperatives. Mondragon Cooperative Corporation is the leading example of a self-sufficient, sustainable organization which has over 200 companies working in over 20 nations and in 2005, grossed 14 billion dollars. See: http://masallp.wetpaint.com/page/Mutual+Aid+Society,+Mondragon+and+More
Jim Miller
jimmiller5417@yahoo.com
Once again, the troglodyte state which I had to return to a decade ago stands ready to lead the charge back to shorter life expectancy for the vast majority, misery, ignorance, disease, and the whole thing, while the handfuls of wealthy pale people play golf while protected by beefed up barbarians.
Those who are anti-working people are at it again. Same tactic as in "right to work" states--what a misnomer. That is what Taft-Hartley did thereby setting working people back since 1947 in southern, border, Rocky Mountain and southwestern states.
Here's the way it will likely play out in Congress if Free Choice is ever considered. The legislation comes to the floor and there will be a provision upholding state laws that have passed or will pass. The self-righteous anti-working people will wrap themselves in the flag of the people's will.
Meanwhile many workers who don't have English as a first language will be intimidated by their bosses, even with the threat of being turned over to immigration, the dreaded ICE, if they support the formation of a union.
Then to top it off there will be liberal legislators--the sainted Morris Udall whom I deeply respected and worked with on many issues-- will argue (not unreasonably) that the people in his state have acted and on this matter he has to represent them. That was his vote explaining his opposition to the repeal of "right to work" in 1965.
We are in the process of repeating an ugly side of history.
David Cohen
Washington, DC