news on the Employee Free Choice front

This is from the Hill: http://thehill.com/business--lobby/card-check-compromise-foes-to-meet-feinstein-2009-05-30.html

Note: this version is a watered down version of the original EFCA. Yes, it will help labor; but it is not the big victory labor wished if it passes. Although details are scant, several items will be stripped from this bill. Manditary arbitration is one.

Note in the article "centerist democrats worried about angering business". Yes, our buddies the dems are yet undermining labor once again. What else is new in the last 50 years.
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'Card-check' compromise foes to meet Feinstein

By Kevin Bogardus

Posted: 05/30/09 03:25 PM [ET]
Business leaders are scheduled to meet next week with a prominent Democratic senator who has proposed a compromise on a contentious union bill that industry has heavily lobbied against

.According to a schedule obtained by The Hill, executives are visiting Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) next Wednesday as part of a lobbying push against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), legislation that would make union organizing much easier if passed. Business leaders from 12 different states, organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are flying into Washington next week to lobby against the bill.

Feinstein has emerged as a key voice on the legislation. At first, her support for EFCA wavered since she is not a co-sponsor of the bill this Congress, unlike two years ago when she also voted for cloture on the bill. But now, Feinstein has floated a compromise for one of the bill’s provisions to help garner support from Senate centrists who are worried about angering the business community by voting for the bill.

EFCA is often called “card-check” because one of its provisions would allow workers to form unions not by secret ballot elections called for by management but by a majority of employees signing petition cards stating their intention to organize.

Feinstein’s compromise would replace that provision with a requirement that union elections be decided by mail-in ballots with the design that workers, not employers, would have a choice on when to form a union while their privacy would be protected from labor organizers.

Along with Feinstein, business leaders are also scheduled to meet with Sens. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) and Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) — centrists who could decide the fate of EFCA. They both co-sponsored the bill last Congress but Bayh is not doing so this year.Union officials have been somewhat open to changes in the bill but business groups have lobbied against any compromise, saying the legislation would hurt industry revenue by leading to more strikes and work stoppages.

They have hammered Feinstein’s proposal because they believe it would still lead to intimidation of workers by union organizers.Labor groups disagree and campaigned extensively for the bill last election.

Unions believe the legislation will boost the economy by allowing workers to collectively bargain for better wages and benefits, increasing their spending power.Introduced in both the House and the Senate in March, the bill later lost momentum as Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, then a Republican, announced his opposition to the bill.

But with his recent party switch, Specter has been involved in negotiations on an EFCA compromise, giving new hope to union leaders.They will still have to win over centrists who have shied away from the bill. Support will be needed from senators like Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) — who has come out against the bill — if it is to pass this year.
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Is Employee Free Choice Dead

Yet another voice is proclaiming labor being betrayed by the dems. Where is the leadership Mr. Obama?

http://www.counterpunch.com/macaray05222009.html

Weekend Edition May 22-24, 2009
Democrats Betray Labor

Card Check is Pronouced Dead
By DAVID MACARAY

Earlier this week it was acknowledged by labor officials and Democratic insiders that the EFCA (Employee Free Choice Act), as presently written, wasn’t going to pass. While the bill may be reintroduced in a different form, the crucial “card check” component has been pronounced dead. Although labor wonks across the country were disappointed by the news, most weren’t surprised by it.

Despite all the hoopla and anticipation, skeptics had predicted long ago that this ambitious bill, which would have provided working people with far greater access to labor unions, had virtually no chance of passing. Why? Because it was too explicitly “pro-labor.”
Big Business and the Democratic Party (despite its lip service) simply couldn’t allow legislation this progressive to become law. Not for nothing has Taft-Hartley remained on the books for 62 years.

Let’s clarify what the EFCA was and wasn’t. First, it wasn’t the draconian, anti-democratic measure it was portrayed to be by its Republican opponents and back-pedaling Democrats (e.g., Senator Diane Feinstein of California) who, while schmoozing with organized labor, were looking to bail.

There was nothing “anti-democratic” about it. Clearly, it was “public,” rather than “secret,” but how is that anti-democratic? Legislators use nay and yea votes on the floor of Congress hundreds of times a year, and a show of hands is used everywhere—from city councils to school boards to company boards of directors. How is card check “anti-democratic”?

If you want an example of “anti-democratic,” just consider the system that exists today—a system that allows a group of workers who actually want to join a union to be nonetheless prevented from doing so by a combination of stalling tactics and company propaganda.

You say you want to join a labor union? Fine, you have that legal right. What that means, precisely, is that you have the legal right to “want” to join. But the company can make you wait months and months before you vote, and has the authority to force you to attend hours of mandatory “fright seminars.”

Management has the right to barrage you with anti-union propaganda. They have the de facto right to threaten you, intimidate you, offer you bribes and promises, and spread false or slanderous information. And while those tactics are more or less legal (if you think they’re not, try fighting them in court), what isn’t legal is allowing you to simply sign a card saying you want to join. Now how topsy-turvy is that?

Second, instead of depicting the EFCA as some sort of wildly “radical” measure, let’s put it in perspective. What the EFCA would have given American workers is what they already have in Europe and Canada. Yes, they have this arrangement in Canada—our calm, stolid, unimaginative, boring neighbor to the north. We’re speaking here of Canada, people, not Albania.

Accordingly, as anti-labor as some members of Canada’s conservative party are, they would, frankly, be taken aback, if not staggered, by the suggestion that Canadian workers not be allowed to freely choose whether or not to belong to a union. While Canadian conservatives may regard unions as detrimental (and harbor the conceit that they themselves wouldn’t join one if given the opportunity), they don’t interfere with workers who choose to join. If only our country were as egalitarian.

How ironic is it—given our fetish for personal liberty—that it’s harder for an American to become a union member than for a foreigner to become a U.S. citizen?

And third, let’s not pretend that this debate had anything to do with the freedom of choice, or adherence to the Bill of Rights, or any other noble-sounding issue. Opposition to the EFCA was no more about a worker’s constitutional “right to choose” than it was about George Washington’s powdered wig.

Let’s be clear: This whole anti-EFCA drive was designed to keep the unions out. Everything else is smoke. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce didn’t spend tens of millions of dollars to promote some abstract principle involving a citizen’s right to choose; they did it to pierce the heart of organized labor.

So who do we blame for the defeat? Obviously, when something as big and expensive and widely publicized as the EFCA falls on its face, somebody has to be held accountable. In truth, organized labor seems the likeliest candidate.
Not only was labor unable to speak with one voice (e.g., UNITE HERE’s battle, SEIU’s leadership scandals, Change to Win’s breakaway from the AFL-CIO, et al), but they once again allowed themselves to be sweet-talked and misled by the Democrats. Yes, labor had on board its Russ Feingolds (D-WI) and Carl Levins (D-MI), but there were too many other DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) eager to jump ship.

In hindsight, organized labor should have relied more heavily on the support of America’s four “most popular” unions—police, firefighters, nurses and airline pilots. This would have helped clear the public relations hurdle raised by teachers, autoworkers and longshoremen, unions that have been receiving bad press.

As much as we like to think we’re an “issue-driven” electorate, it’s often a handsome face, a nice smile, or a famous family name that wins elections. After all, isn’t it the cute weather girl who gets hired for TV, and not the nerdy meteorologist?

Unbelievable as this sounds, it was reported that one of Governor Rod Blagojevich’s staffers once told him “he had the hair” to become U.S. president. And polls showed that 25% of Republican males approved of Sarah Palin because they found her “hot.” (That whirring sound in the background is James Madison spinning in his grave.)

Still, organized labor may not have invented the game, but they’re compelled to play it.
Therefore, “pretty” unions (police, firemen, pilots) are going to be more popular than the conspicuously “ugly” ones—like teachers, who are being blamed for the nation’s low test scores, and the UAW, which, as urban myth has it, was responsible for killing the American auto industry and Detroit along with it.

At the EFCA’s coming-out party, the American Labor Movement should have dolled itself up before entering the room. It should have made the grand, sweeping entrance worthy of a prized debutante. Instead, it chose to conduct business in its usual, plodding fashion. Granted, it’s easy to second-guess, but organized labor clearly needs a makeover.

Of course, we’re already hearing people say, “Wait til 2010,” suggesting the Democrats will pick up enough senate seats to have those 60 votes necessary for cloture. The problem with that logic is it assumes the Democrats want card check to pass. Alas, there’s little evidence to support that assumption.

David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright (“Americana,” “Larva Boy”) and writer, was a former labor union rep. He can be reached at dmacaray@earthlink.net
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One might add, that the dems have also betrayed us on healthcare reform by disallowing single payer folks at healthcare summits. Of course, some in labor think this is fine. Ask Mr Andy Stern, whom has publically said some very nice things of Senator Baucus and his committee. Andy took a seat among the thieves and murders of our healthcare industry in Baucus's senate committee. Good going Andy. Maybe some of the SEIU will realize that the senate committee's guests wish to tax insurnace benefits of the workers.

Some in labor are also so wrapped up in the "Obama" kumbaya" that they are not seeing what is occuring. Labor must rethink its political strategy for the dems are not seemingly our buddies nor have they been since FDR, except a few leaders.

Perhaps it is time for labor to seek a third party. Wonder how many dems can raise enough money and support without the unions to get elected? reelected?

Artist for Worker's Choice

Saw this on http://www.charlieaverill.blogspot.com/ and is currently making its way across the net including USW and AFL-CIO websites. Rather good I might say. Thank you again Charlie

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http://blog.aflcio.org/ is the source of the following dealing with Employee Free Choice. Good cartoon

New twist on the Employee Free Trade Act

The following is from the Wall Street Journal and deals with an attack upon the proposed Employee Free Trade Act----from the left.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165379013293871.html


OPINION: MAIN STREET
MAY 7, 2009
The 'Free Choice' Act Is Anything But
George Meany and binding arbitration.

By GEORGE S. MCGOVERN
The recent news that Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter has become a member of the Democratic caucus has given new life to legislation that many thought had been put to rest for this Congress -- the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

Last year, I wrote on these pages that I was opposed to this bill because it would eliminate secret ballots in union organizing elections. However, the bill has an additional feature that isn't often mentioned but that is just as troublesome -- compulsory arbitration.

This feature would give the government the power to step into labor disputes where employers and labor leaders cannot reach an agreement and compel both sides to accept a contract.
Compulsory arbitration is bound to trigger the law of unintended consequences.

Currently, labor law maintains a careful balance between the rights of businesses, unions and individual employees. While bargaining power differs depending on individual circumstances, the rights of the parties are well balanced. When a union and a business enter negotiations, current law requires that both sides bargain "in good faith."

In a contract negotiation, each party typically perceives the other as too demanding. But no one loses their right to contract willingly or suffers being forced to agree to anything. Employees can strike if they feel that they have been dealt with unfairly, but it is a costly option. Employers are free to reject labor demands they find to be too difficult to accept, but running a business without experienced employees is itself difficult. Both sides have an incentive to press their demands, but they also have compelling reasons not to press their demands too far. EFCA would disrupt that balance by enabling government-appointed lawyers to decide what they believe is fair or reasonable.

A federally appointed arbitrator cannot be expected to understand the nuances specific to each business dispute, the competitive market position of the business, or the plethora of other factors unique to each case. Yet fundamental decisions on wages and benefit costs, rules for promotions, or even rules for exiting an unprofitable line of business could fall to federal arbitrators under EFCA.

Many labor contracts can run over 100 pages with their requirements of each party. Compulsory arbitration is, in one sense, government dictating to employees what they will win or lose in the deal, with no opportunity to approve the "agreement." Why should employees pay union dues to get such a contract?

My perspective on the so-called Employee Free Choice Act is informed by life experience. After leaving the Senate in 1981, I spent some time running a hotel. It was an eye-opening introduction to something most business operators are all-too familiar with -- the difficulty of controlling costs and setting prices in a weak economy. Despite my trust in government, I would have been alarmed by an outsider taking control of basic management decisions that determine success or failure in a business where I had invested my life savings.

When it comes to labor disputes, both parties should be guaranteed a real chance for compromise under the joint economic threat of contract breakdowns. George Meany, president of the AFL-CIO for nearly 30 years before retiring in 1979, had it right in condemning mandatory arbitration as "an abrogation of freedom."

My party has well-deserved majorities in both houses of Congress, and I am thankful to have an exceptional president in Barack Obama. But while the Democratic majority in Washington confers the power to reward our loyal supporters, today's problems require solutions that transcend party politics. Even when that means taking unpopular stands.

Mr. McGovern is a former senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate.
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All USW contracts to my knowledge have some sort of arbitration included by the way as does many other contracts with labor unions and companies I have seen. I believe the defeat of McGovern has worn down his mind. I voted for him way back when and if he had said something like this; would not have voted at all. alternative was Richard Nixon

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This is a copyrighted article and will withdraw if objections made.

Employee Free Choice Act. Is it dead?

Morning Folks

One of the issues that we believe should be the law is the Employee Free Choice Act, the right of folks to form unions or not; as the workers wish and not the company. We have supported this for some time and worked towards getting it passed.

Slam dunk said some of the politicans running for election last cycle. However, not so as of yet and some are proclaiming the act dead in its tracks.

This is interesting story from Wall Street Journal reproduced here for comment by the group. This is one of the May agenda items:

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124035645604940949.html

APRIL 22, 2009 Card Check Is Dead
Some Democrats only care about labor's money.
By THOMAS FRANK
Article

It has been three hard months of political exile for those on the right, a time
for them to count their grievances and dress their outrage in the trappings of
centuries past. Some have donned colonial outfits to stage tea parties. Others
have found the 1860s more to their taste, reviving the fiery language of
secession fever.

But they can all take heart from one development in the nation's capital. Good
old K Street, where the big tea party never stopped, has all but halted
organized labor's effort to make it easier for workers to unionize.

After massive lobbying both by labor and by business, it appears that the
Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which, as it now stands, would allow workers to
organize in many cases merely by signing cards instead of holding elections,
will not have the 60 votes required to get past a Republican filibuster in the
Senate.

Now, to be pro-labor is to resign yourself to years of failures and defeats,
with few tea parties along the way for consolation. Even so, the setback on EFCA
has to be a bitter one. Union members worked hard to elect Barack Obama and the
Democratic Congress, as they did to put Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton in the
White House. And now, just as in those previous two periods of Democratic
governance, labor's friends are having trouble enacting basic labor-law reforms.

To understand why we need new rules governing unionization, look no further than
yesterday's New York Times, where Steven Greenhouse told the story of a
Louisville, Ky., hospital whose nurses tried to form a union but failed after
they were reportedly threatened with losing their benefits among other things.

Such practices are commonplace and well-documented by Human Rights Watch and
others. But labor's case never seemed to hit home. Instead, conservatives have
carried the day, playing on lurid stereotypes to hint that intimidation by
unions is the real worry and that EFCA spells the end of secret ballots in the
workplace and hence of democracy itself.

Before I go on, I should acknowledge that this whole thing might be a clever bit
of jiu-jitsu by the unions. After all, the mere threat of EFCA has turned
business almost Soviet in its feigned concern for the proletariat. The Chamber
of Commerce is now exhorting the public to "stand up for workers' rights,"
running a "workforce freedom airlift," and, along with other trade associations,
supporting groups with names like "Coalition for a Democratic Workplace" and
"Workforce Fairness Institute."

EFCA's supporters may simply drop their bill's most controversial provisions,
get some compromise measure passed, and spend the next 20 years reminding
corporate America of the days when it was touchingly committed to "workers'
rights" and a "democratic workplace."

If only. The sole clever reversal we have seen so far has been the familiar one
where Democrats torpedo the most trustworthy member of their coalition.

Why does labor always get it in the neck?

First, there are those Democrats who don't care much for labor to begin with.
Then there is the wide spectrum of Democratic donors and supporters who simply
don't understand the problems of blue-collar life. They might dislike the
religious right, but they didn't give money to Democratic political campaigns to
increase union membership.

Or maybe it's just the money. Consider the lineup of lobbyists that retail giant
Wal-Mart has assembled to make its case against EFCA. According to lobbying
disclosure forms filed with the House and Senate we find that Wal-Mart's
lobbyists include Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti (which employs former presidential
candidate John Kerry's liaison to Congress during the 2004 campaign), a former
legislative director for Rahm Emanuel, and a former assistant to Arkansas
Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln.

Wal-Mart has also secured, according lobbying disclosure forms filed with
Congress, the services of Tony Podesta, of the Podesta Group, one of the hottest
lobby shops in Democratic D.C. Mr. Podesta is joined in pushing Wal-Mart's views
on EFCA by a former assistant to Democrat Mark Pryor, the other senator from
Arkansas.

The real standout on Wal-Mart's labor-issues roster, though, is D+P Creative
Strategies, which wears its liberalism as proudly as last week's tax protestors
did their three-cornered hats. According to its Web site, D+P "highlights
partnership, shared benefits, and a commitment to advancing social justice
goals." The disclosure form for its Wal-Mart EFCA activities lists a former
assistant to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. The bio of its principal, Ingrid
Duran, who is also listed as a Wal-Mart lobbyist, declares that the firm's
mission is "to increase the role of corporate, legislative and philanthropic
efforts in addressing the concerns of Latinos, women, and gay, lesbian, bisexual
and transgender (GLBT) communities."

Maybe the day will come when those communities are correctly addressed by
corporations and the rest. But when their "concerns" turn in the direction of
bargaining with their employers, they're on their own.

Write to thomas@wsj.com

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If the act is dead, coupled with the assult on the UAW; not a banner 100 days for labor. Take that some of our allies have flipped on the single payer health care issue, not a good 100 days. Take that Chrysler will be Fiat, more American stuff oversea adventure, not a good 100 days.
That the steelmills on the eastside are still closed and not producing steel for rebuilding the infrastructure of the land, not a good 100 days for labor.

Perhaps labor should "rethink" support for administration and the democratic party in general in the upcoming elections? Dems, take notice: most elections in Missouri are won or lost with less than 25,000 votes. If labor (or even the retiree labor folks) start switching support from say the dems to green, republicans will win and win big for Missouri next election.