Archive for June, 2009
GM’s Crash Should Be Warning Sign Against Employee Free Choice Act
Saul Anuzis in the Detroit Free Press offers a history lesson and a look forward:
The reason that the great American tradition of making cars in my home state has now gone belly up is due in large part to the irrational and unreasonable demands made by UAW chief Ron Gettelfinger, former UAW chief Frank Garrison, and the union leaders that came before them. And the rest of it lies with the management of the Big 3 who made promises they knew they couldn
Man, We’re Too Old For That S@#$
Danny Glover of Lethal Weapon fame is a big union supporter and proud of it. He’s helped organizing campaigns and now he’s trying to heal an ugly internal rift in which the Service Employees International Union helped tear off a faction of UNITE HERE. Glover writes over at Huffington Post, calling for the unions to settle the dispute by binding arbitration — a little (but not entirely) like that included in the Employee Free Choice Act.
As with the case of business, the unions would not be wise to allow a non-expert outsider to make decisions mortal to the core mission. As UNITE HERE co-president John Wilhelm has written:
Depends On What You Call Progress
Over at Roll Call’s website they are reporting:
Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) indicated Wednesday that he will be ready to bring up the long-stalled Employee Free Choice Act next month, following weeks of negotiations with key stakeholders.
Another hearty, helpful reminder that EFCA is alive and a significant threat to the U.S. economy and potentially millions of precious jobs.
Dollars Everywhere, But Not One To Spare
Union officials have thrown money around like it’s going out of style — and indeed it may be, as three stories circulating the news point out:
- The Wall Street Journal notes that the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union are both facing much bigger liabilities than in recent years, thanks to their lavish political spending
- A critical new examination finds almost half of the nation’s largest unions have pensions funds that are at “endangered” funding levels, according to a report from the Washington Examiner (which, of course, includes a quote from ABC’s in-house expert, Brett McMahon)
- Newt Gingrich’s article “Once, we would have called it a scandal” … well, frankly, it has so much info that we aren’t going to do it an injustice by recapping — just click thee there immediately.
“Post Card Check” Is Just As Bad
Brian Worth, chairman of the ABC-affiliated Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, has a letter to the editor of the Oregonian newspaper today highlighting the key concerns with a “card check lite” scheme floated in would-be compromises.
He writes:
The most important distinction is that there’s no ballot involved in the mail-in card proposal. It merely substitutes the discredited card check ruse with a “postcard check” — a new and equally flawed variation. The postcard check proposal increases the power of the professional union organizer, eviscerates secret ballot elections and further weakens workers’ privacy rights.
Like regular card check, mail-in cards do not provide the guaranteed security and privacy of a voting booth, thus inviting fraud, intimidation and coercion with more visits to workers’ homes by union organizers.
This latest attempt to fix what is wrong with the Employee Free Choice Act opens the door to abuse through ACORN-style campaigning that is prone to fraud and increases the possibility of worker intimidation and coercion. As National Labor Relations Board career staff noted, mail-in cards increase the “potential for interference by any party.”
You can’t fix card check by simply adding postage and this alternative further expands the attack on worker privacy from the workplace to the home.
Amen.
Sen. Specter, Where Is He On Employee Free Choice Act
The chattering class is (again) atwitter with wonder about where Sen. Arlen Specter is on the Employee Free Choice Act. The latest news is that Sen. Specter told labor audiences that they would like his position on the bill. Some interpret that as outright support. We say not so fast.
Shortly before altering his party status, Sen. Specter said he did not believe the time was right, economically speaking, to support EFCA. Little has changed there, as Associated Builders and Contractors members will tell you. And while a Democrat in Pennsylvania needs labor to win a primary race, he/she needs all type of voters in the primary.
So it’s worth noting the latest news:
Pennsylvanians of both political parties oppose the so-called card check legislation pending in Congress that would make it easier for unions to organize, a statewide poll shows.
The poll of 700 registered voters by Susquehanna Polling and Research Inc. found that people oppose card check by a 55-29 percent margin. Forty percent said they strongly oppose the legislation, compared to 15 percent strongly in favor.
Overall, we take the Senator at his word that he will not vote for cloture on EFCA with the current economic situation.
