Free Republic

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) suggested Thursday that Democrats might attempt to move "card-check" legislation this year, perhaps during a lame-duck session. Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, strongly disputed that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card-check") was dead in the Senate. "To those who think it's dead, I say think again," Harkin said on the liberal Bill Press radio show. "We're still trying to maneuver," the Iowa Democrat added, explaining that if Democrats can't move the bill in its entirety, they might try to pass key parts of the union-organizing legislation...

Isn’t it so satisfying to see a schoolyard bully get knocked flat on his back? Last week’s Arkansas Democrat Senatorial primary gave us just that image to savor. The Big Labor thugs and criminals took it on the chin and their attempt to bully and blackmail Blanche Lincoln failed. The sin Lincoln had committed is her failure to back Labor’s scheme to use the power of the federal government to force unwilling workers to join unions through all but rigged voting without benefit of the secret ballot. We won the showdown Lincoln is an opponent of the deceptively named Employee...

Business groups opposed to “card-check” legislation declared victory after Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s win in a Democratic primary in Arkansas. Unions had worked hard to defeat Lincoln, who opposed legislation that would have allowed unions to form if a majority of members signed cards indicating their intention of wanting union representation. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was the No. 1 issue for unions in this Congress. “A massive investment on the part of union bosses, which they will not be able to duplicate in other races, resulted in a loss for Big Labor’s poster-child candidate, producing a general election where...

What does a man whose only political principle is his own survival do when attempting to distance himself from his former political party? If you answered “go pro-choice,” then you get the Florida kewpie doll. Charlie Crist has scrubbed his campaign website of its former support for the pro-life cause, but not quickly enough to keep Marco Rubio and Life News from noticing it: ..................................................... Recently, as Mr. Crist addressed the AFL-CIO, headlines emerged in Florida papers reading, “Crist: Open Ear About Employee Free Choice Act.” Crist stated he would be “open” to a bill that would put 600,000 jobs...

If we don’t finally kill Card Check it will kill us. So far we’ve beaten this monster but union gangsters and their Democrat comrades want our liberties and they won’t stop. Their repulsive plan would rob America’s workers of first our secret ballot rights, then our money in unnecessary union dues and finally our jobs themselves. Unions kill jobs. There is no disputing that. Nevertheless the AFL-CIO’s greedy hogs won’t quit. They are desperate trapped animals that can see their fall from power clearly in front of them. They know that unless they get a transfusion of cash they’re done...

...[T]he AFL-CIO removed the large banner supporting EFCA which had covered the corner of the building facing the White House for the past year or so...

Despite all our talk of CommieObamie being a socialist, it is a straight out fact that the far left in America are mad that Obama didn't turn us into the U.S.S.R. lite the second he took office. His pace at selling us out and turning us into a social democratic system ala France isn't happening fast enough for them. For unions the fact that Obama hasn't summarily castrated the business community and forced card check down everyone's throats yet is a downer. And with that in mind, unions have announced that they are taking their ire out on those mythical...

Over at the Washington Examiner, Mark Hemingway highlights a case which shows just how the Employee Free Choice Act might work in practice if it were ever enacted. The act would make union organizing radically easier by replacing federally monitored elections with alternate methods, such as the following: One day last fall, approximately 40,000 private day care owners in Michigan woke up to discover they had become members of a public sector union. Most had no idea what was coming. Here’s how it happened: The United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees worked with...

Unions: Republican senators have warned the president not to appoint Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board while Congress is in recess. But he will — and American workers and consumers will be worse off for it. There's good reason to oppose Becker sitting on the NLRB, the five-member federal agency that administers the National Labor Relations Act governing relations between unions and private-sector employers. It's not so much because Becker is a lawyer for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union and would be the first NLRB member to come straight from the legal staff of organized...

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As reported exclusively on these pages last week, Union pension plans are in much worse shape than people feared. In fact, Moody’s September 2009 report measured 133 union pension plans. Out of the total 133 only 25 union pension plans are adequately funded, 43 of them are between 65-79% funded that classifies them as endangered. The remaining 65 union pension plans, one out of every two measured, are underfunded at a critical rate, less than 65%. For the full list click here. The proposed card check bill, which will allow unions to dramatically increase their rolls by eliminating the secret...

Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., will vote for cloture on card check if the pro-union legislation comes up for a vote, he told businessmen Tuesday. Specter’s vote alone is not likely to ensure passage of the bill, formally known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make union organizing radically easier. Democrats lack a 60-vote majority in the Senate, it has no Republican support and other Democrats are likely to oppose it. But Big Labor probably needed Specter to even have a chance. Specter may be feeling political heat.

The Associated Press posted a story lamenting that Big Labor has failed so far to get Obama to heel by their commands. Big Labor has said "jump" and Obama has but skipped. The article is correct, though, that Big Labor has failed in its two biggest goals: socialist healthcare and card check. At least, they've failed so far. A third failure has also been forced upon Big Labor. As a result of newly seated Republican Senator Scott Brown's win in Massachusetts, Big Labor was not able to install Craig Becker as the head of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)......

Explosion In The 6th Congressional District: Could The Implausible Occur? Is State Rep. Curt Schroder A Dark Horse For The Endorsement? BY CHRIS FREIND “FREINDLY FIRE” Hollywood couldn’t have scripted the drama any better in the GOP’s nomination race for Pennsylvania’s 6th Congressional District. Try to follow along: Four-term incumbent Jim Gerlach tells the world --- repeatedly --- that he would NOT seek re-election, opting instead to jump into the gubernatorial fray. Based on Gerlach’s word, popular Chester County State Representative Curt Schroder announces he would seek the GOP nomination for the open seat, raising nearly $200,000 in just a...

Barack Obama dropped by the White House press room the other day to stick it to the Republicans in the name of comity and fellowship. He offered to cooperate with the Republicans in the Mafia spirit of making an "offer you can't refuse." "I'm willing to move off some of the preferences of my party in order to meet them halfway," he told the reporters, "but there's got to be some give from their side as well. I also won't hesitate to condemn what I consider obstinacy." The only way Republicans can demonstrate their lack of obstinacy, the president made...

Gov. Christie today declared that New Jersey had veered to the edge of bankruptcy and ordered a broad array of state cuts in an effort to make up a $2.2 billion deficit in the current budget amid falling revenues. Christie froze aid to more than 500 school districts and public colleges and universities, ordered the end to several state programs and the Office of Public Advocate, and seized unspent money across state government. "Today, we come to terms with the fact that we cannot spend money on everything we want,'' Christie told a special joint session of the legislature. "The...

Republicans are up in arms over a pro-union contracting policy currently under consideration by the White House, arguing the measures will significantly increase the cost of government contracts and are part of the Obama administration’s efforts to implement policies that favor organized labor while circumventing Congress. The Daily Caller reported last week that senior administration officials are considering a series of proposals known as “High Road Contracting Policy” that would give preference to companies bidding on federal contracts that pay hourly workers a “living wage” (typically a mandated, above-market wage) and provide additional benefits above and beyond existing labor laws....

Labor Policy: And you thought card check legislation was dead? That certainly appeared to be the case last spring. But now there's talk of attaching it to a jobs bill. Dirty politics and lousy policy. Card check, known last year as the Employee Free Choice Act, is an attempt to fundamentally change the way unions organize. Under a card check law, a union would be certified if a simple majority of workers signed the cards that were used to gauge their interest in unionization. A follow-up vote through a secret ballot, the traditional method of certifying a union, would not...

Major Garrett tweets this response from AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka on the defeat of Craig Becker: "A Republican-led filibuster has put political interests over the needs of America’s working families," Trumka said. "We support President Obama’s expressed willingness to make recess appointments of critical posts in the federal government if that’s what it takes to get around minority delay and obstruction."

Fox News now reporting that Pres. Obama;s nomination of leftist radical labor union associated Craig Becker has failed in the US senate.