Free Republic

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."

Still looming on the legislative horizon is something deceptively called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 800), the provisions of which will make it easier for union organizers to impose union representation on a group of workers by circumventing the current secret ballot method of deciding for or against union representation with an odious mechanism called “card check.” Secret ballot voting has been a feature in US elections for more than two centuries, and that includes union elections. However, if the EFCA were to become law, the federal government will have tilted the playing field toward labor unions by...

The GOP victories reveal fissures in the coalition that elected Barack Obama. If you were watching television on Tuesday night as the election returns came in showing Republicans capturing the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey, you probably missed seeing the biggest losers of the evening. You may have caught the concession speech of Creigh Deeds, who ran 12% behind Barack Obama's winning percentage of the vote in Virginia, and that of Jon Corzine who, after spending over $100 million of his own money on three... --snip-- Instead, support evaporated as Democrats from places as dissimilar as Arkansas and California...

Useless Unions by: Sarah Carlsruh, September 21, 2009 According to a recent ad campaign sponsored by American Rights at Work, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is all about “letting workers choose to join a union to earn better pay and benefits.” Yet Diana Furchtgott-Roth and Andrew Brown of the Hudson Institute disagree, referring to the “sorry state of unions” as a reason the organizations are embracing EFCA, which is currently pending in Congress. Their September 2009 study, Comparing Union-Sponsored and Private Pension Plans: How Safe Are Workers’ Retirements? states that “many of the major national unions advertise that union...

Professor Harry G. Hutchison of George Mason University recently took a look at the union favored Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and made a startling conclusion. He believes it will harm minorities. Saying that the EFCA is “arguably the most transformative piece of labor legislation” since 1935, Hutchinson warns that it will seriously harm the rights of workers and the status of minorities alike. To start, Hutchinson summed up the provisions of the bill. One of the newest attempts to transform labor relations is the EFCA. The first to disappear under the EFCA would be a system of union democracy...

As the president and Congress considers passing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in which the “card check” feature is still a major provision, a federal agency is trying to prevent its own employees from using the card check practice to organize. The Legal Services Corp., a congressionally chartered, taxpayer-funded entity has hired legal counsel to try and prevent its employees in its oversight office from using the card check procedure to become unionized... Read the rest at Publiusforum.com...

The all-consuming debate over health care has effectively sucked all of the oxygen out of the policy world leaving little room for discussion, let alone action on other major elements of the progressive agenda—or so it would seem. The mammoth bills winding their way through Congress will certainly upend our health care sector, if they are enacted. Little known, however, are several provisions that will provide an enormous pay-off to one of the Democrat parties most loyal constituency—Big Labor.

Controversial legislation that would make it easier to organize unions will pass this year, Vice President Joe Biden said today. Appearing at a Labor Day rally in Pittsburgh, Biden praised the role of unions in building the middle class and said the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will make it through Congress before the end of the year, the Associated Press reports. That's a very optimistic timeline, considering that Democrats are already putting all their legislative muscle behind healthcare reform.

James P. Hoffa is now saying that if Obama pulls the "public option" out of his healthcare bill, it is not a deal killer as far as union support is concerned. Hoffa said that he was only interested in what was "doable" and that they need to "get something done… and declare a victory." Now let's take a look at these quotes from Mr. Hoffa, shall we? What does it mean if we aren't seeing obliged union support without integrity for Obama's healthcare coming from Hoffa's Teamsters? Hoffa is saying that he doesn't care at all what healthcare "reform" will...

Some scholars squabble about the particulars, but there is no question that democracy's roots go back at least 2,500 years to practices developed in the Greek city-state of Athens. But the adoption of a key pillar of democracy — the secret ballot — came far more recently. In England in the 1830s, disenfranchised working-class men and sympathetic members of Parliament launched the Chartist movement. The most crucial of its six objectives was universal suffrage for all men over 21, but not far behind was the secret-ballot provision. It took decades, but eventually the secret ballot became the democratic norm —...

Congress will likely deal unions a disappointment on labor law reform this year. Prospects are dimming for a vote in the Senate on legislation that would allow labor groups to organize via card signing campaign instead of a vote. The House of Representatives has not yet approved the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) but is expected to do so this session. The holdup is in the Senate. Although talks to craft a compromise, led by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), continue behind the scenes, more-urgent legislation is threatening to push consideration of any compromise into next year. Health care reform is...

It has to be the ultimate hypocrisy, but the Democrat Party has been touting its support for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), a bill that would eliminate the secret ballot for potential union members, but recently decided that a secret ballot for Senators on whether or not to vote in committee chairmen is quite important. The hypocrisy is stark. I say again, even as Senate Democrats have found no reason to protect the democratic right of the secret ballot for union workers they’ve decided that it is a must for themselves when voting in or out Senate committee chairmen....

In Senator Specter’s own words regarding EFCA and the Secret Ballot… One answer to the Senate, the same to Sunday shows, the same to a townhall last week. …. and then three days later a different to a liberal crowd in Pittsburgh. Which is it?

With the introduction of the unions, things have turned violent. Remember, it was Obama who encouraged his supporters to "get in their faces and argue" and the Democrats pledged to "punch them back twice as hard."Perhaps now you understand the danger of the Employee Free Choice Act. The AFL-CIO says they "need the Employee Free Choice Act." The SEIU says they "support the Employee Free Choice Act."But card-check, the portion of the bill that most found to be very dangerous, has been removed. So what's the danger?Imagine the folks above, the type who stomp people and smash cameras into people's...

The debate over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is being reframed now that the notorious “card check” provision—which would have taken away the right to secret ballots on union representation—will be pulled from the bill. Business groups and members of Congress on the fence will now come under tremendous pressure to support the act, although equally objectionable provisions, such as mandatory arbitration, remain. Yet there has been virtually no debate over the bill’s onerous and unprecedented penalties against employers who may fall afoul of vague National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules as workers try to unionize. These penalties will...

The AFL-CIO recently posted a story on its blog that tired to paint a “contractor's group” that is supporting the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) as if it were an industry group unconnected to unions and coming over to its side on the EFCA. Of course, the AFL-CIO blog sort of failed to mention that the "contractors" in question are solidly unionized. The truth is, it is not just a normal industry group but one solidly on the side of unions in the first place. The AFL-CIO blog points to the announcement of the Association of Union Masonry Contractors and...

Despite rumors that the "card check" provision may be removed from EFCA, other clauses of this bill will still have a negative impact on the relationship between employers and employees. A few of the changes to the NLRA are neither the employer nor employee will have the right to turn down an arbitrator’s proposed contract. Also, all negotiation will not exceed 120 days of bargaining. Most contract negotiations go beyond 120 days. Maybe because unlike congress both parties read what they are signing!

Organized Labor: Card check may be a dead issue, but companies aren't yet free of the union threat. An anti-business provision of the perversely named Employee Free Choice Act is still under considerationIf the card check process were to become law, the traditional method for forming a union would be replaced with a pro-union system. In current practice, workers vote to either join the union or reject it through a secret ballot. A simple majority carries the vote. Under card check, a work force would become unionized if a simple majority signed the cards that are used to measure workers'...

A group of senators are discussing dropping a key provision in the card-check bill in order to win centrist support in the upper chamber. But congressional aides and union officials said no agreement has been hammered out yet on an alternative to a bill that is organized labor’s top legislative priority. They stressed that that every piece of the legislation is up for discussion in order to earn 60 votes to beat back a certain Senate filibuster. A report in The New York Times Thursday said senators led by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) had decided to remove the card-check or...

A half-dozen senators friendly to labor have decided to drop a central provision [card check] of a bill that would have made it easier to organize workers. ... In its place, several Senate and labor officials said, the revised bill would require shorter unionization campaigns and faster elections. ... Though some details remain to be worked out, under the expected revisions, union elections would have to be held within five or 10 days after 30 percent of workers signed cards favoring having a union. Currently, the campaigns often run two months. To further address labor’s concerns that the election process...