Employee Free Choice: Let the labor brawl begin
Rep. John Shimkus
WASHINGTON — Senate and House introduction today of legislation making it easier for workers to form unions signaled the start of a business-labor battle that some participants refer to as “Armageddon.”
The Employee Free Choice Act — which opponents have labeled the “card-check bill” — would let employees signal support for forming a union by openly signing petitions rather than voting by secret ballot.
If a majority in a shop signed the cards, a company would have 90 days to negotiate union representation.
Given the anti-union sentiments over the last eight years and increased instances of firing of pro-union workers, there’s a great deal of pressure by labor organizations to get the legislation flowing in this Democratic-run Congress. Hundreds of union workers spread out across Capitol Hill today to carry that message.
Talking points are getting sharpened, and both sides point to the recession as they present their arguments.
For instance, Change to Win chair Anna Burger argued today that collective bargaining could help people losing their jobs and their health insurance in these hard times.
“They’re working harder than ever before, yet they’re not able to share in the wealth they helped create. To really fix this economy, we must rebuild the middle class,” she said.
Rep. John Shimkus, R-Collinsville, was one of the House members from the St. Louis region who jumped quickly into the fray. Shimkus sent out a series of House GOP talking points in the form of questions, one of which pointed to a business-sponsored study concluding that more union workers would mean more unemployment.
“While supporting the right of workers to organize using the secret-ballot process, many members (of Congress) may be concerned that the bill’s provisions designed to force unionization will harm the very employees which the bill is designed to protect,” Shimkus’s letter asserted.
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I think the key part of this article is, “increased instances of firing of pro-union workers” in recent years. Employees should not be fired simply because they are pro-union. We saw that here recently as pro-union employees were fired without cause at the Lumiere: http://blog.showmeprogress.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=2510
Republicans will try to say that this takes away the secret ballot but it does no such thing. Employees still have every right to request an election. What the employee free choice act does is restrict employers right to tell employees they must have an election. This is exactly what Lumiere did.
Over 80% of the workers signed cards saying they wanted a union and Lumiere rescinded an early promise to recognize the union and instead ask their workers to think about it while they went on a rampage firing union leaders and trying to intimidate workers through closed door meetings.
The workers at Lumiere stayed united and won, but no worker should be forced to face such challenges just to bring democracy to the workplace.
Bill, you should have your facts straight when you describe the bill in question. The Employee Free Choice Act would not “let employees signal support for forming a union by openly signing petitions rather than voting by secret ballot.” Under current law, they can already signal support for forming a union in this fashion or by a secret ballot election.
The problem with current law is that the choice of using the majority sign-up procedure or a secret ballot election is entirely up to the employer, not the employee. What often happens is that the overwhelming majority of employees sign up to unionize, and then the employer decides to ignore that wish and opt for an election. In the interim, they identify union organizers and fire or transfer them, hold anti-union education meetings, and even threaten to close down the branch.
What Adam and Richard said. To reiterate, under the Employee Free Choice Act employees will not lose the right to a secret ballot election, nor will they have a new option of majority signup created for them. Instead, they will have the choice between the two of those options, which under current law is reserved for the employer.
Unions are lying. Votes are secret. I’ve been a union member and union officer and my vote and privacy on company property was respected. The only ones pushing this are union hacks in an office worrie their cushy job could be in jeopardy. They forgot about the working man a long time ago.
Underground mensa is neither.
Anti-union hacks are not elected to union office.
This bill should be called: “The Union Thug Full Employment Act of 2009″
Nothing more… nothing less…
Card check is a very, very, bad thing
Warren Buffett came out on CNBC’s Squawk Box and said he opposed “card check”.
George McGovern says that it’s a very, very, bad thing
Card check is a very, very, bad thing
Warren Buffett came out on CNBC’s Squawk Box and said he opposed “card check”.
George McGovern says that it’s a very, very, bad thing
The Heritage Foundation says that it’s a very, very, bad thing
(sure you could ignore Heritage… but ignore BOTH Heritage AND McGovern?)
It requires employers to recognize a union– without an election–once organizers collect cards from a majority of employees. The act states that once the union submits signatures from over 50 percent of the employees to the National Labor Relations Board, it must certify the union without an election;
It imposes first-contract mediation and arbitration; and
It dramatically increases the penalties for unfair labor practices committed by employers during an organizing drive.
EFCA replaces secret ballot elections–the method by which most workers join unions–with publicly signed union cards.
Under the EFCA, workers have no say in union organizing tactics: EFCA does not permit workers to sign cards that call for an election without also counting those signatures toward a card-check majority. Workers must decide whether or not to join a union publicly in front of union organizers.
Organizers have a job to do: recruit new dues-paying members to their union. They are not paid to inform workers of the downsides of unionizing. Instead, they use sales tactics to make the strongest case they can for joining a union and ask workers to sign their cards immediately.
Many workers choose after a high-pressure, one-sided sales pitch without hearing from both sides.
Union organizers return again and again to the homes of workers who do not sign at first to pressure them to change their minds. With card check, “no” only means “not yet.”
Workers who refuse to sign are subject to intimidation and threats because their choice does not remain private.
Thanks for giving us the employer talking points tsquare. But the fact is that employers, not unions, are the ones guilty of intimidating workers. Employers have the ability to pull you into one on one meetings, to fire you, to demote you, to give you the crappy shift. Just look at what happened at Lumiere. I have not heard one report of workers being intimidated into signing cards, but there were several employees who were harassed by their bosses, intimidated and even fired. So while you present a nice story based on your imagination, it just does not compare with the facts on the ground.
Workers need a fighting chance and EFCA will give it to them.
Well I am an employer Richard so I guess that’s right.
As for you never having seen union intimidation, I suggest that either you haven’t spent too much time around unions or you have been on the side of the intimidation.
Two different construction sites in the City of St Louis burned to the ground… non-union construction sites. The union fire fighters rule both ’suspicious’ in spite of the fact gas can be smelled in the rubble.
Cars burned… workers harassed, sometimes beaten, both on the job site and at their homes. Fire bombs thrown at houses… not to sit them on fire but to ’send a message’ Union police file reports… but nothing is ever ‘known’ about who did any of it.
Unions are dead and should be allowed to die off… they are only the last vestige of the thus and the unskilled and uneducated. Card check serves only to prop them up and hurt our economy.
Let them die.
Again tsquare you fail to mention any specifics. You can go to the Department of Labor to see thousands upon thousands of complaints of employer intimidation in a union election. I have referenced interference from a St. Louis employer from about one week ago. You suggest vague stories without any specifics or any proof. Your arguement is just weak.