NYT/Reuters: Battle Looms Over Right to Unionize: Employee Free Choice Act

[DeepModem Mom]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With Democrats in control of Congress, labor will try to make unionizing as simple as signing a card, a move which business is already challenging as an assault on the secret-ballot process.

The battle will begin on Tuesday when lawmakers introduce the Employee Free Choice Act, which would not only streamline unionizing, but also assure newly organized workers a contract and sanction lawbreakers. It would enable workers to unionize simply by having a majority sign up, rather than by holding a vote as they now must do.

Passage is considered likely in the House of Representatives but is more uncertain in the Senate.

"I think most people get it that there's a power imbalance between workers and management,'' said Greg Denier, spokesman for the Change to Win labor federation. "But I don't think most people have made the connection yet that it's because of the the labor laws.''

Last month, the AFL-CIO, the largest U.S. labor federation, released a poll by Hart Research in which more than two-thirds of adults surveyed supported the bill's key provisions....

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-congress-labor.html

[napi21]

1. I see no legal justification to a secret ballot in signing up for or against a union membership.

I would also say union membeship should be voluntary. idon't know what it's like like now, but many years ago, it was supposed to be voluntary, but if you refused to join, you were in for a heap of trouble.

[CANDO]

4. Then you are agreeing with "Right to Work" Laws?

You may not be aware, but these RTW laws are nothing but union busting trojan horses. You can't have collective bargaining when many employees want to benefit from union representation but don't want to pay for it by joining. In states that operate under the traditional "closed shop" law, any member may have his/her dues reduced to pay only for administering the collective bargaining agreement. This means they get a rather small percentage reduction because the lion's share goes directly to administering representation. Closed shop means if you don't wish to join the union, you don't gain employment. Plain and simple, and the way it should be. No freeloading.

[Hekate]

2. Wendy McCaw just canned 3 more reporters for trying to unionize

Eccentric billionaire Wendy McCaw is taking Santa Barbara's daily newspaper down (as in wrecking it) with her management style. We've about lost count of how many employees she's fired since last summer, but there's hardly anyone left who knows how to actually do the job.

The former employees have a lawyer and they've been in touch with the NLRB, but Wendy is adamant and she can afford all the lawyers she wants.

The Santa Barbara News-Press didn't need a union until Wendy bought it. Now they do.

As for the rest of the country, unions are a big part of what grew the middle class and made it strong. Unions are what gave blue collar workers pensions and health care, and a decent wage scale. Ronald Reagan struck the first blow to break the back of the unions by firing all the air traffic controllers at once for having the nerve to demand better hours (directly related to your safety in the air) and wages.

I could go on, but the destruction of the unions has as much to do with the destruction of the middle class as anything else.

Hekate

[DeepModem Mom]

3. Thanks for your post, Hekate. nt

[xchrom]

5. ''management'' has made the connection re: labour laws.

and in our current political climate -- anti-unionization fits perfectly with the neo-con, straussian, corporatist, conservative christian point of view.

there really is an effort to stifle, strangle, suffocate, stunt, etc entry to the middle class and the middle class.