Posts Tagged ‘Union Households’
Card Check, The Un-Dead Threat Zombies On
Card check, and its legislative embodiment, the smirkingly named Employee Free Choice Act, continues to be the point of debate. Some think the issue is dead, while others say it is a done deal. Whom to believe, then?
Tough to say, so here are some items that can act as food for thought.
One advocate of organized labor says card check is dead, and that
Not News: Union Households Not Supporting Union Agenda
The Wall Street Journal today carries an important story, “AFL-CIO Poll Shows Union Households Boosted Brown.” The gist: union households supported the candidacy of Scott Brown for Senate in this week’s major special election for the Senate, meaning union households oppose large parts of the agenda pushed by organized labor’s top bosses.
The Journal takes a look at what this means for card check:
Signs that unions can’t deliver rank-and-file votes present another challenge for labor leaders trying to salvage their legislative priorities, including a bill that would make it easier for them to organize workers and win initial labor contracts from employers through arbitration. AFL-CIO lobbyist Bill Samuel said the union still holds out hope for the Employee Free Choice Act, which was stalled in the Senate before Mr. Brown’s election.
“We don’t see it being dead,” he said. “We’re obviously reallocating our strategy and the timing,” he said.
Mr. Samuel still expects a vote on the bill to occur this year, he said. “That’s our plan.”
Card check and EFCA have been the “plan” for several years for top labor officials, but the opposition by union households has been there too.
This month new polling showed that 66 percent of union households oppose changing the bargaining process in unionization, which EFCA would do; 51 percent of union households oppose changing the way unions are formed, which EFCA would do; and 77 percent of all voters, as well as 77 percent of union households oppose a government arbitrator having the final say in determining contract terms, which EFCA would do.
This isn’t terribly surprising or new. Polling from early 2009 showed that 85% of union households favor having a federally supervised election as a means to
