Posts Tagged ‘Bill Clinton’
AR: Card Check and Union Power
In close races things can get ugly. Just ask the Democrats in the primary for the Arkansas Senate seat. And as races get closer, and uglier, important issues take on a starring role. In this case, the fight is over card check — as with its legislative embodiment, the Employee Free Choice Act — is turning into a proxy over how much power union officials should have to shape the work lives of Americans and our economy.
Indeed, the New York Times and its top labor reporter writes, “The unions have made the race here the centerpiece of a new effort to hold union-backed candidates accountable for their votes after they are elected.”
Union officials claim Sen. Blanche Lincoln has not shown enough support for the measure, which is one reason unions are spending millions and millions of their members dues dollars to try to run her out of office. Meanwhile, her challenger and union favorite, Bill Halter, is doing his best just not to answer any questions about his stance on card check. Who can blame him? It’s a no-win situation: either do right by Americans and condemn card check or get booted from the Big Labor gravy train.
Somehow the fight has turned into one of Bill Halter and President Obama on one side and Sen. Lincoln and former President (and Arkansas governor) Bill Clinton on the other. Here’s the former president’s thoughts, which have been turned into a TV ad:
What A Post-Card Check World Looks Like
It’s been light blogging here of late as news related to the Employee Free Choice Act has been something on the back burner, but it will continue to heat up as the election approaches (see this involving the Arkansas Senate race and former President Bill Clinton as example).
So it’s worth taking another look at what America would look like if EFCA’s card check provision passed.
First, the unionizing of a pot shop in Oakland, California — which acceded to a the card check demands of UFCW — has been called the “model” of organizing in America. If a weed shop is your model business, good luck convincing the rest of the world.
Then there’s this ostensible sob story told by a far-Left activist in California who appears to have a vested interest in attacking the Valero energy company:
Last August, despite 74 percent of the workers at Valero’s Texas City, Texas, signing a petition for United Steel Workers representation, the company launched an all-out effort to halt the union organization effort. Workers were subject to captive audience meetings for three weeks before the vote, one-on-one meetings with management and
