Pushing and Polling the Employee Free Choice Act

Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 by Admin

The esoteric world of labor-law watching will no doubt be aflutter this morning over news that the well-respected Gallup organization has poll results suggesting a majority of Americans theoretically support making it easier to join a union. What’s that, you say, a majority of Americans support a bill that would effectively kill secret ballot elections for employees, impose government arbitrators on small businesses, and lead to hundreds of thousands of jobs lost? Actually, no.

Gallup found that 53 percent of Americans would favor a law making it easier to form unions. Remember, Gallup has found that most Americans say they approve of unions while at the same time two-thirds do not want unions to have more influence than they currently have. Translation: Americans support principles of helping workers (which is good) while being dubious of specifics pushed by organized labor (which is a good thing).

And there’s more to the poll results that does not bode well for EFCA:

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009 at 8:24 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

8 Responses to “Pushing and Polling the Employee Free Choice Act”

  1. March 17th, 2009 at 1:05 pm

    James says:

    When will the ABC and the rest of you republican rightists quit lying to America. You know full well that EFCA does not take away the right of a secret ballot, it gives that right/choice to the workers.

  2. March 17th, 2009 at 4:44 pm

    Geoff Burr says:

    EFCA doesn’t take away the secret ballot? Really? Well, while technically that’s accurate, in practice and reality it’s completely misleading. While the letter of the law of EFCA does nothing to remove the secret ballot, it DOES remove the requirement of the secret ballot in union elections and effectively replaces it with the “card check” system. You only need to gather cards from 50% of the employees plus one. Once those cards are collected and subsequently submitted to the NLRB, the company is unionized. Can the employees then ask for a secret ballot? NO. Can the company? NO. Now, if the union, while holding 51% of signed cards, wants to still ask for a secret ballot vote, they can…but you’d have to be the dumbest union organizer in the history of unions to do that.

    It is true that the unions could also collect only 30% of the cards and then ask for a secret ballot, but they won’t. These days under the current system union organizers are under strict instructions to only request the election from the NLRB when they have 60-70% of the workers signed to cards, not at the 30% level prescribed by current law. The union feels they are wasting time and resources otherwise. So do you think they’ll ask for a secret ballot under EFCA, when they only need to get 50% of the cards in order to unionize the company with no vote, no campaign and no money spent? You’ve got to be kidding me.

    Does EFCA legislatively eliminate the secret ballot? Nope. But, does it ensure that the secret ballot will never be used again? It sure does.

  3. March 17th, 2009 at 5:22 pm

    Dave Palen says:

    Mr. Burr is correct. I find the misrepresentation about card check by pro-EFCA stooges to be very educational. It is a perfect example of how they will mislead employees to sign union organizing cards. How about: “This card will enable you to vote yes or no for a union. Until you sign, we can’t get an election to happen.” The union organizer then gets over half of the employees to sign and presto–a union exists. Don’t forget about the mandatory arbitration provision. That will help sink the economy even further.

  4. March 17th, 2009 at 5:37 pm

    Nancy Johnston says:

    With our economy possibly heading from recession to depression, we have our President focused on his liberal agenda, rather than trying to save all our jobs. He is more concerned with continuing his campaign and paying off special interests–especially labor unions. Same for the Democratic leadership. I guess since they get most of their campaign funding from union dues, it isn’t surprising. Seems more important and patriotic to focus on the economy and his plan to win (or give up?) our two wars.

  5. March 17th, 2009 at 8:42 pm

    Jim Meyer says:

    What’s not being said here is the way in which employers use the secret ballot to defeat union organizing drives. The secret ballot sounds good, but in practice it’s simply an organizing tool that management uses to bust the union. The NLRA process is a slow one, and it favours management. During the time where workers wait to vote, management has all the power, intimidating and harassing, sometimes firing union supporters. The reason why employers are against the EFCA is because it gives workers the right to call an election, not employers. The secret ballot will still exist, the secret ballot isn’t going anywhere. What is changing is who can call the secret ballot. Look at history, look at the US, when were times better? When were pensions better? Does that conincide with better union density? Strange isn’t it?

  6. March 18th, 2009 at 8:14 am

    Geoff Burr says:

    If you really think the union is going to collect over 50% of the cards and then ask for an election out of the kindness of their hearts, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you.

  7. May 29th, 2009 at 7:33 am

    Just 15 Turn Up For Pro-Employee Free Choice Act Event | thetruthaboutefca.com | The Truth About The Employee Free Choice Act & Card Check says:

    [...] by organized labor, and the grassroots is un-enthused, as they should be. As we’ve noted, union members are not particularly fond of the their officials’ plans to strip secret [...]

  8. September 25th, 2009 at 8:08 am

    vincent van gogh says:

    Sometimes I think it might be worth hiring a virtual PA purely to deal with my inbox.