Corporate America terrified of dealing with its workforce on an even playing field

[dajoki]

Corporate America Prepares for Battle Against Worker Campaign to Roll Back Assault on the Middle Class
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted August 8, 2008.
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/94004/corporate_america_prepares_for_battle_against_worker_campaign_to_roll_back_assault_on_the_middle_class_/

There is nothing more terrifying to corporate America than the prospect of dealing with its workforce on an even playing field, and, along with allies on the Right, it's pulling out all the stops to keep that from happening. At stake is much more than the usual tax breaks, trade deals and relentless deregulation; corporations are gearing up for a fight to preserve a status quo in which the largest share of America's national income goes to profits and the smallest share to wages since the Great Depression -- in fact, since the government started tracking those figures.

There will be many heated legislative battles if 2008 shakes out with larger Congressional majorities for Democrats and an Obama White House -- fights over war and peace, energy policy, health care reform and immigration. But it may be a bill that many Americans have never heard of that sparks the most pitched battle Washington has seen since the Civil Rights Act. It's called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) -- a measure that would go a long way toward guaranteeing working people the right to join a union if they so choose -- and it has the potential to reverse more than three decades of painful stagflation, with prices rising and paychecks flat, for America's middle class and working poor.

The Chamber of Commerce, D.C. lobbyists, firms that rely on cheap labor and a host of "astroturf" front groups are building a war chest that could reach hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to build a firewall against EFCA and other efforts to put a check on corporate power and rebuild a declining middle class. A recent report on the front page of the Wall Street Journal about how Wal-Mart -- the nation's largest employer -- is "mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors" in an effort to discourage its workers from voting Democratic this fall generated quite a bit of controversy. According to a report in the National Journal that received less attention, "several business-backed groups ... (including) two fledgling coalitions fighting labor-supported legislation and the conservative political group Freedom's Watch are trying to raise $100 million for issue advocacy and get-out-the-vote efforts to benefit about 10 GOP Senate races."

It's the EFCA -- the idea that working people who want to join a union can -- that has corporate America quaking in its collective boots. The bill passed the House easily in 2007 -- by 56 votes -- and had majority support in the Senate. But it didn't reach the 60 votes required to kill a GOP-led filibuster, and that massive war chest being amassed by the corporate Right is, in part, an attempt to maintain a firewall of at least 41 anti-union senators -- mostly Republicans joined by a few corporatist Dems -- to kill the bill in the 2009 Congress. President Bush threatened to veto the legislation if it had passed in 2007, but this time around, they fear that a Democrat will be sitting in the White House. Obama was a co-sponsor of the 2007 legislation; McCain opposed it.

The prospect of a filibuster-proof majority that's sympathetic to the needs of ordinary working Americans, according to the National Journal, is making "business groups jittery." Polls show that the economy is Americans' number one concern going into this fall's election; fully 75 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track, and these well-funded groups are intent on keeping it firmly on that track.

American Wages and the Law of Supply and Demand

At the heart of the bloody cage match that's likely to come is this: In economic terms, the wages of many -- probably most -- Americans represent a "market failure" of massive proportions. Even the most devout of free-marketeers -- economists like Alan Greenspan and the late Milton Friedman -- agree that it's appropriate and necessary for government to intervene in the case of those failures (they believe it's the only time that such "meddling" is appropriate). But the corporate Right, which claims to have an almost religious reverence for the power of "free" and functional markets, has gotten fat off of this particular market failure, and it's dead-set on continuing to game the system for its own enrichment.

[brentspeak]

1. k and r

:kick:

[fascisthunter]

2. Dayum right they are Terrified.... Employee Free Choice Act is over due!

[Bob Dobbs]

3. The real enemies of The People-globalist corporofascists.

Guillotine the executives.

[yourout]

4. If there was ever a time for union membership resurrection it is now.

This along with closing ditching any tax incentives for moving jobs overseas and creating tax incentives to keep jobs here will hopefully slow down or stop the constant parade of jobs going to China.

[dajoki]

5. Right wingers are throwing...

money at this like crazy. Sen. John Ensign of Nevada said “It’s our No. 1 issue to raise money on,” Ensign said last week. “It scares anybody who’s in business to death.” http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jul/27/ensign-finds-ace-senate-election-hole-fear-unions/

[MindPilot]

6. What has always amazed me

is the vast majority of ordinary working people who hate unions.

Talk to virtually anyone and if they aren't a union member themselves they will tell you how unions are responsible for high prices, offshoring, outsourcing and are the whole reason that the plant had to be closed and moved to Mexico.

[dajoki]

8. That's because they are brainwashed...

by corporations like Walmart.

[Romulox]

7. “The collateral damage from these efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages..."

Wal-Mart Defender To Direct Obama’s Economic Policy

As the company became a pariah in Democratic circles, Mr. Furman stepped out on the issue in 2005 by publishing a 16-page paper titled, “Wal-Mart: A Progressive Success Story.” He argued that the huge cost savings the company has delivered to its customers, who tend to have low incomes, far outweighed any impact the chain may have had on wages.

In a debate on Slate.com in 2006, Mr. Furman took on the tactics of the anti-Wal-Mart movement, which include trying to block new stores in places like New York. “If I heard that Wal-Mart was coming to my neighborhood, New York’s West Village, I might rush for my mouse. But I wouldn’t kid myself into thinking that my opposition had anything to do with helping the poor. If anything, I would feel guilty that I was preventing moderate-income New Yorkers from enjoying the huge benefits that much of the rest of the country already knows so well,” he wrote.

“The collateral damage from these efforts to get Wal-Mart to raise its wages and benefits is way too enormous and damaging to working people and the economy more broadly for me to sit by idly and sing ‘Kum-Ba-Ya’ in the interests of progressive harmony,” Mr. Furman added.

A spokesman for Mr. Obama, Joshua Earnest, said the candidate and Mr. Furman have not discussed Wal-Mart.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/10/9534/

[dajoki]

9. They are telling employees how to vote...

The Detroit News
http://detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080804/POLITICS/808040325
Monday, August 4, 2008
Wal-Mart warns workers of Democratic win
Company insists it's not telling employees how to vote, only warning of party's pro-union stance.
Ann Zimmerman and Kris Maher / Wall Street Journal

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is mobilizing its store managers and department supervisors around the country to warn that if Democrats win power in November, they'll likely change federal law to make it easier for workers to unionize companies -- including Wal-Mart.

In recent weeks, thousands of Wal-Mart store managers and department heads have been summoned to mandatory meetings at which the retailer stresses the downside for workers if stores were to be unionized.

According to about a dozen Wal-Mart employees who attended such meetings in seven states, Wal-Mart executives claim that employees at unionized stores would have to pay hefty union dues while getting nothing in return, and may have to go on strike without compensation. Also, unionization could mean fewer jobs as labor costs rise.

The actions by Wal-Mart -- the nation's largest private employer -- reflect a growing concern among big business that a reinvigorated labor movement could reverse years of declining union membership. That could lead to higher payroll and health costs for companies already being hurt by rising fuel and commodities costs and the tough economic climate.

The Wal-Mart human-resources managers who run the meetings don't specifically tell attendees how to vote in November's election, but make it clear that voting for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama would be tantamount to inviting unions in, according to Wal-Mart employees who attended gatherings in Maryland, Missouri and other states.

[Nederland]

10. The only thing I don't get about that bill

...is the elimination of the secret ballot. Why is it a good idea to eliminate the secret ballot? Isn't the right to have your vote be private a pretty basic right?

[dajoki]

11. "management is all but encouraged to identify union sympathizers"

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jul/27/ensign-finds-ace-senate-election-hole-fear-unions/
Unions complain the election process favors employers because they can campaign against the union and, assisted by high-priced “union avoidance” consultants, use mandatory informational meetings, among other tools, to threaten and intimidate workers.

Because labor law prescribes minimal penalties for employer violations, labor experts say, management is all but encouraged to identify union sympathizers, often firing them to snuff out the momentum of an organizing drive well before the matter is put to a vote. Even when workers vote and win, employers can challenge the result or bargain to an impasse with the union. Either way, appeals are often bogged down for years in a Byzantine legal process.

For those reasons, the 60,000-strong Culinary Union in Las Vegas has abandoned elections, opting instead to negotiate voluntary card check agreements with the major casino companies, including the one once run by Ensign’s father, Mandalay Resort Group. The proposed bill would require that employers recognize unions under that kind of organizing. (Workers would still have the option of a secret ballot.)

[Nederland]

12. I don't see how that helps

Unions complain the election process favors employers because they can campaign against the union and, assisted by high-priced “union avoidance” consultants, use mandatory informational meetings, among other tools, to threaten and intimidate workers.

Because labor law prescribes minimal penalties for employer violations, labor experts say, management is all but encouraged to identify union sympathizers, often firing them to snuff out the momentum of an organizing drive well before the matter is put to a vote. Even when workers vote and win, employers can challenge the result or bargain to an impasse with the union. Either way, appeals are often bogged down for years in a Byzantine legal process.

I don't see how eliminating the secret ballot stops those things. In fact, one would think that keeping the ballot secret would make it more difficult for the company to identify and fire union supporters.

[dajoki]

13. It would help prevent illegal tactics by employer...

http://www.uaw.org/cap/06/issues/issue10.cfm
Although workers’ right to form unions free from employer interference is guaranteed by the NLRA and by international human rights law, over the last 20 years, U.S. employers — encouraged by union-busting consultants — have increasingly resorted to both legal and illegal tactics to keep workers from forming unions. A large and growing percentage of employers either take advantage of loopholes in the NLRA or simply violate the NLRA to spy on, harass, pressure, threaten, intimidate, suspend, fire, deport, and otherwise victimize workers who attempt to exercise their right to act collectively through a union.

Employer interference has a devastating impact on workers’ right to form a union. Thirty-six percent of workers who vote “no” in union representation elections explain their vote as a response to employer pressure, according to a Cornell University survey. According to the same survey, employers illegally fire at least one worker in 25 percent of all organizing campaigns. Ninety-two percent of employers make their employees attend “captive audience” meetings, where they must sit through one-sided, anti-union presentations during company time. (Union supporters, of course, are given no opportunity to speak.) On top of captive audience meetings, 78 percent of employers have supervisors hold repeated closed-door, “one-on-one” meetings with workers which are very intimidating to most workers. Additionally, in the manufacturing sector especially, employers routinely threaten to close or to move the workplace if workers vote for the union. Although the NLRA makes it illegal to threaten a plant closing, union-busting consultants coach management on how to phrase such threats as legal “predictions.” Over 75 percent of manufacturing companies threaten or “predict” the workplace will close or move if workers vote for the union.

Compounding the problems of employer interference and intimidation is the ineffectiveness of NLRA remedies. If an employer is found to have illegally fired a worker, for example, the monetary penalty is limited to backpay — minus any money the fired worker earned in the meantime. The penalty for illegally threatening to close the plant is for the employer to post a notice saying they won’t do it again. Thus, for many employers, firing workers who are identified with the union organizing campaign and paying the backpay is simply a cost of keeping out a union.

Because it is very difficult for workers to form a union by going through the NRLB election process, the UAW and other unions now use an alternative technique known as “card-check recognition.” Under card check, the employer voluntarily agrees to recognize the union if the union presents signed union authorization cards from a majority of workers. In most instances, the authorization cards are validated by an outside person, such as an arbitrator or religious leader.

The Employee Free Choice Act (S. 843; H.R. 1696) requires employers to recognize and bargain with unions who have demonstrated majority support on the basis of card check. With card-check recognition, the union is able to organize workers without the assault from a full-blown anti-union campaign, which is generally triggered at the moment a union files a representation petition with the NLRB. Without the interference and intimidation of an anti-union campaign, workers have a much higher rate of success in unionization drives.

Noting the recent success of card check recognition by the UAW and other unions, Congressional Republicans introduced legislation that would bring a halt to these successes. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., introduced the “Secret Ballot Protection Act of 2005” (H.R. 874; S. 1173), to make card check illegal. Under this bill, employers would always be assured the opportunity to mount a campaign of intimidation and harassment.

[Nederland]

14. You are not listening

For example, your snip includes this sentence:

Thirty-six percent of workers who vote “no” in union representation elections explain their vote as a response to employer pressure, according to a Cornell University survey.

This begs the question, if the vote was secret, how do we know who these people are? If the vote was secret, no one would know who voted which way and nobody could get fired.

[dajoki]

19. The point is...

that they can't even attempt to organize the way it is set up now. The check cards would protect them as a group. I went through this on a job where everyone was threatened with being fired or the job being shut down if there was any talk of union. Check cards give a better chance of organizing and if you look closely the secret ballot is not being taken away. It is one trick that they are using to try to defeat this bill.

[Nederland]

26. True

And that is why the rest of the bill is important and should be passed. Allowing elections without a secret ballot though, is just a bad idea. I don't see why its part of the bill.

[Selatius]

28. From what I understood, the EFCA allows unionization by both routes, not just secret ballot.

The problem with secret ballot is that once the NLRB sets an election date to vote yes or no on union representation, the employer has all that advance warning to begin to intimidate workers and spy on them to find out the pro-union elements in their labor force. Tactics such as one-on-one management-employee "staff meetings" and other tactics up to and including espionage are meant to convince workers to vote no.

With a union card check system, a union organizing drive can essentially be executed much faster without giving the employer time to basically beat workers down, but if the union so wishes to bolster its results, it can if it chooses to also request a formal NLRB vote date after a card check drive is done to basically reaffirm that that is the will of the workers.

[dajoki]

30. That is it, EXACTLY n/t

[bread_and_roses]

17. The EFCA does not "eliminate" the "secret ballot" -

It simply leaves the choice of using card check or secret ballot up to the workers. Under the EFCA the WORKERS can decide they want an election, but the employer cannot demand one if the workers choose card check. If you want more info, go to http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/10keyfacts.cfm

on edit - this is the main false talking point that the Corps will use, so it is important to counter it

[dajoki]

20. Yes...

They are spending alot of money to see that EFCA doesn't pass, that should tell the doubters something.

[Nederland]

27. I don't think that is clear

Your link says:

Workers can still vote under the Employee Free Choice Act. At any time, if 30 percent of the workers want an election, they can have one. And once they have a union, workers also vote to elect their union representatives.

I have lots of questions here. How do you know when 30% want an election? Is there a vote? Is that vote secret?

IMHO, the simplest thing to do is to have a secret vote by mail every year. If a majority vote for a union, you get one. It's not like mailing out ballots to everyone in a company costs much, and I'd be all for having the government pay for it if corporations whine about the cost (which you know they would).

[bread_and_roses]

29. Notice that in that reference that "once they have a union" comes AFTER "if thirty percent want a

union." At any time, during the card check process, if thirty percent want an election, there will be an election rather than recognition of the union by card check.

What is majority sign-up, and how does it work?

When a majority of employees votes to form a union by signing authorization cards, and those authorization cards are validated by the federal government, the employer will be legally required to recognize and bargain with the workers’ union.

Majority sign-up is not a new approach. For years, some responsible employers such as Cingular Wireless have taken a position of allowing employees to choose, by majority decision, whether to have a union. Those companies have found that majority sign-up is an effective way to allow workers the freedom to make their own decision—and it results in less hostility and polarization in the workplace than the failed NLRB process.

Does the Employee Free Choice Act take away so-called secret ballot elections?

No. If one-third of workers want to have an NLRB election at their workplace, they can still ask the federal government to hold an election. The Employee Free Choice Act simply gives them another option—majority sign-up.

“Elections” may sound like the most democratic approach, but the NLRB process is nothing like any democratic elections in our society—presidential elections, for example—because one side has all the power. The employer controls the voters’ paychecks and livelihood, has unlimited access to speak against the union in the workplace while restricting pro-union speech and has the freedom to intimidate and coerce the voters.

Once a majority of workers indicate they want a union by signing cards, the company should not be able to drag the process out for months as they can under a management-controlled election process. The will of the majority should be recognized.

http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/qna.cfm

Once a union is formed, the workers don't vote every year on whether or not they want a union. Should some workers decide that they want to dissolve their union, there is a process that must be followed. But right now, the problem is that millions of workers say they would join a union if they could, but the deck is way stacked against them.

Unions don't vote every year on continuing their existence, and workers would not want the COMPANY to have the right to call an election re: union representation/no representation EVERY YEAR. Please browse around the sections on the AFL-CIO page I linked above, and see what companies do when they have an opportunity to campaign against a union. Rove's dirty tricks are child's play by comparison - and Rove can't fire the voter
edit for quote box and link

[Nederland]

31. Perhaps I'm reading it wrong

Are you telling me there is no situation where a person will be asked to sign an authorization card?

[bread_and_roses]

32. No. There is nothing wrong with card-check, I'm not sure what you're reading?

Have you checked the links? It seems plain to me. The EFCA leaves the choice of whether or not to use card-check or a NLRB election up to the WORKERS. In other words, the employer has no say in it. If the WORKERS do not want an NLRB election but choose to use card-check, the employer cannot force an election. Nor do even a majority of workers have to want an election - 30% suffices.

Card check can be and is used now to authorize a union, but only if the employer agrees. You can imagine how often that happens, as it does not allow them quite the scope and time that an election does to run union-busting campaigns.

Look who is behind the opposition to the EFCA - it really should tell you all you need to know:

Who’s behind oppositition to the Employeeee Freeee Choiceiceice Act?

National Right to Work Committee (NRTW)
Since its creation in 1955, NRTW has claimed to be an advocate for workers’ human and civil rights. Yet the group and its four organizations that lobby, litigate, research, and conduct polls is notorious for its dogged pursuit of an anti-union agenda. In October 2006, Judge Michael A. Telesca, a Reagan-appointed judge, denied a NRTW attempt to serve as class counsel for nonmembers of a union, ruling that the group “is well known for its hostility to unions on political and ideological grounds, which drives their demands for punitive remedies.”

Grover Norquist
The conservative strategist and close business and political ally of indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff runs two organizations and funds the work of another group to fulfill his his plans to “crush labor unions as a political entity” and ultimately “break the unions.”

Center for Union Facts
The Center is a front group focused on damaging the public image of unions and furthering an anti-union business climate. The group is a creation of notorious industry lobbyist and PR flak Richard Berman, who has mounted campaigns for his corporate backers to relax drunk driving laws, discount public health concerns about obesity, and prevent increases in the minimum wage. In August 2006, Montana’s Attorney General Mike McGrath called the Center’s $1 million ad campaign attacking public employees “inaccurate” and “demeaning.” Similarly, a number of television stations refused to air commercials produced by the Center in May 2006. One station manager explained his station’s decision to reject the ad this way: “We believe that the spot is designed to be inflammatory, incendiary, and panders to the lowest common denominator stereotypes about unions and union officials.”

U.S. Chamber of Commerce
The nation’s most powerful business lobbying organization lobbies to oppose pro-worker legislation, including the Family Time and Workplace Flexibility Act, Fair Minimum Wage Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act. The Chamber has repeatedly denied funding the Center for Union Facts, yet the group’s Vice President for Labor, Randel Johnson, admitted he had “served as an adviser to the Center.”

For more information on opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act and how they
misrepresent the facts and their true motivations, visit: www.antiunionnetwork.org.

link from: http://www.afl-cio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/whooppose.cfm

[Nederland]

35. Question

The EFCA leaves the choice of whether or not to use card-check or a NLRB election up to the WORKERS.

How do you determine what the workers want without having a vote?

[bread_and_roses]

39. Answer

Part of your answer is the process:

What is majority sign-up, and how does it work?

When a majority of employees votes to form a union by signing authorization cards,

Signing cards is how workers indicate that they wish to form a union - that is ordinary method NOW, there is nothing new about it.

and those authorization cards are validated by the federal government,

The NLRB "validates" the cards under the EXISTING provisions of the National Labor Relations Act

the employer will be legally required to recognize and bargain with the workers’ union.

The EMPLOYER no longer has the right to demand an election if the WORKERS are satisfied with card check (see below for provision when some workers are not satisfied with card-check process).

Majority sign-up is not a new approach. For years, some responsible employers such as Cingular Wireless have taken a position of allowing employees to choose, by majority decision, whether to have a union. Those companies have found that majority sign-up is an effective way to allow workers the freedom to make their own decision—and it results in less hostility and polarization in the workplace
than the failed NLRB process.

Does the Employee Free Choice Act take away so-called secret ballot elections?

No. If one-third of workers want to have an NLRB election at their workplace, they can still ask the federal government to hold an election. The Employee Free Choice Act simply gives them another option—majority sign-up.

quotes above from AFL-CIO.

How does that 30% know it exists? It organizes, just as those who seek to form a union organize to achieve that. None of this happens in a vacuum of information, and most of the processes are already all spelled out - the EFCA amends the already existing National Labor Relations Act.

Disclaimer: I am not a union organizer, so any errors and omissions above are mine alone, and not part of some nefarious plot to deprive workers of their rights.

The "take away the right to secret ballot" is one of the main LIES the right-wing and corporations will be using to counter the EFCA. It is important to know it's a lie, and counter the propaganda they'll be spewing.

[Nederland]

44. Response

When a majority of employees votes to form a union by signing authorization cards

Question: Are those cards signed in private and is it possible for the corporation (or anyone) to know how an individual employee signed?

[dajoki]

33. Again...

I have to say, just follow the money, look who is spending millions to defeat this legislation.

http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/the-anti-union-network/home/
Anti-Union Groups Spending Millions Against Employee Free Choice Act
July 31, 2008
Right-wing anti-union groups are pouring tens of millions of dollars into an effort to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. Front groups plan to spend upwards of $120 million on misleading advertising against pro-worker Congressional candidates in the 2008 elections.

According to reports, several anti-union front groups plan to collectively spend almost $100 million in the next year against the bill and those who support it. The breakdown is as follows (from the National Journal):

-Chamber of Commerce: $20-30 million
-Coalition for a Democratic Workplace: $30 million
-Employee Freedom Action Committee: $30 million
-Freedom's Watch: $30 million (from one anti-union contributor)
-Center for Union Facts: unknown, but in the millions

Sheldon Adelson—a major right-wing billionaire and fundraiser—recently called the Employee Free Choice Act "one of the fundamental threats to society"—the other being “radical Islam.” Adelson is vehemently anti-union, and put up $30 million of his own money into Freedom's Watch, a conservative advocacy group, as part of an effort take on Congressional candidates in 2008.

But the Employee Free Choice Act just isn't a cause for anti-union entities to spend money. Republican Senate leadership is trying to use the bill to drum up major contributions: "It’s our No. 1 issue to raise money on," said Senator John Ensign (R-NV), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

[Nederland]

36. That means nothing

They are opposed to the bill because of the other provisions, which I support. As I said from the beginning, my only problem and confusion about this bill surrounds secret balloting. The other measures are good and necessary to level the playing field between unions and corporations.

[dajoki]

37. Well, I can't explain it...

any better than some of the other posters have. All I can say is that the bottom line is it will help workers organize without the pressure of losing their jobs, as it is currently.

[Nederland]

38. Common sense says otherwise

It's actually very simple. If you want to eliminate the possiblity of corporations firing people for supporting a union, you have to make a person's support of a union a secret. So far, no one on this thread has explained the flaw of that logic.

[bread_and_roses]

40. Workers sign cards NOW to indicate that they want to form a union - please see

my response above. And when workers want to form a union, at some point the efforts of those organizing and supporting those efforts become visible, and are targeted. Nor is outright firing the only method used.

I really think it would help you understand the issues if you explored some of the links I gave you earlier.

[Nederland]

42. Yes, and that is BAD

Workers should not have to give any public indication about their support of unionization. How many ways do I have to say it? The way to prevent corporations from firing union supporters is to keep the fact that they are union supporters a secret. Period end of story.

[bread_and_roses]

49. Why should workers who want to form a union have to creep around in secret?

And secret probably doesn't work too well at some point in an organizing effort. How do you increase your support in "secret?" How do gather allies from the community (very important in some organizing drives)? And what makes you think that there won't be "company men" (including, alas, some workers -who are only human like the rest of us and not all immune to either promised rewards or threatened punishmnets and even the propaganda spewed out by right-wing radio) infiltrating and spying and reporting back no matter how "secret" the organizing is?

I'm sure if you think about this a bit, you will see how impractable it is, not to mention, as I say, wrong in essence. There is nothing criminal about trying to form a union, laws exist to protect workers, organizers, AND the company: unfortunately, widespread abuse of those laws exist on the part of EMPLOYERS. The penalties for employers are so light that they gladly pay them to keep unions out. Workers having any voice at work, any power to bargain for themselves, is anathama to them. It's the loss of power they fear, I'm convinced, not increases in wages or benefits.

As you will see below, in Omaha Steve's post, the cards are already turned into the NLRB, not the employer. Nonetheless, employers seem to have very little difficulty targeting the leaders of organizing efforts.

[bread_and_roses]

47. self delete misplaced

[dajoki]

50. If you feel like it...

check out the tons of information all over the web about this issue, then when you don't change your position(because I'm sure you won't), at least you will know why.

[dajoki]

52. Simplest explanation I have seen...

From Omaha Steve Post #46
Card check let's the employee decide on having an election or not. The employee simply checks election on the card. The union turns the cards in to the NLRB, not the employer. So the employer has no way of knowing who was in favor of a union.

[GrantDem]

45. It does not eliminate the secret ballot...

This is a right-wing talking point, a LIE!

The Employee Free Choice Act would put democracy back into the workplace. Majority card sign-up would ensure the decision to form a union was made by the majority of the workers, not by the employer unilaterally.

Workers can still have a secret ballot election under the Employee Free Choice Act. At any time, if 30% of the workers want an election, they can petition the NLRB and have one. Currently the employer has the voice in having an election. This puts the power in the hands of the workers, where it should be.

[bread_and_roses]

48. Exactly. And it's the talking point the anti-union forces will keep pounding

with all their money and media. It's an easy sound bite that makes it sound as if the EFCA is violating a core American value - which is why it is a powerful lie. And they will no doubt do it through astroturf "grass roots" organizations, because anyone who thinks for half a minute about whether or not Corporations support any form of democracy in the workplace will howl with laughter at the notion that they were suddenly "protecting" worker's "right to a secret ballot." So groups with folksy, patriotic names will be springing up and buying ads, no doubt.

[G_j]

15. kick

[Glenda]

16. kick

:kick:

[annabanana]

18. Of course they're terrified. They've been treating their workers

like slaves for years now. They seem to think that some of us might be a little ticked off.

[varelse]

21. Hide thread has proven useful

I doubt I'd ever have seen this one, if not for the fact that I've been busy hiding so many others ;)

Never thought I'd use the feature, but now I'm glad I did... too bad I'm too late to recommend...

[dajoki]

34. I'll have to try that n/t

[Overseas]

22. Kick -- to support EFCA ! /nt

[TahitiNut]

23. I've been raising this alarm for all 6 years I've been on DU

The corporations have been fucking over labor for years ... worse now than at ANY time since immediately before the Great Depression.

[dajoki]

24. I keep saying it...

but if you look at where the money is coming from to defeat this bill you will see why it is so important to pass.

[onethatcares]

25. without being able to institute either martial law or create a reason

to take over the entire economy by force, they've bled the middle class dry. This bullshit about a credit crisis or an oil crisis does not have any effect on the very wealthy, only the working and the poor and they will continue to manufacture crisis to keep thier power.

Shock Doctrine at its' finest. The parallels to Chile and Argentina are amazing.

[Yavin4]

41. A New Labor Movement Is Inevitable Because of the Death of Easy Credit

Access to easy credit which could pay for everything from cars to TVs to housing was the real bulwark against unions. You see, as long as the people have the accoutrements of a middle class, a home, a new car, and a big TV, and they can get them on credit, then why form a union and fight for better wages?

Now with credit tightening, car leases becoming a thing of the past, and health care costs soaring, the middle class will need real wages and benefits in order to stay in the middle class. You need a real down payment in order to get a home.

If you can't borrow your way into the middle class, then you have to earn your way.

[margotb822]

43. Great info

I will definitely work on getting this word out!

[dajoki]

51. Thank you...

This bill has been called "the most important piece of legislation since the formation of the NLRB back in 1935."

There are many online petitions to sign one is at the AFL-CIO website.

[Omaha Steve]

46. I was fired (1980) and reinstated by the NLRB in 1984 (Raygun years)

My decision is online. The NLRB voted 2-1 for my complaint of an unfair labor practice. The Federal appellate court in St. Louis upheld that decision. I had enough cards signed (around 70%) and enough votes to get the GAU a win. Once management KNEW I had enough that would vote yes, I was fired within 48 hours. After that, nobody wanted to get fired. The election was dropped. You don't have to take my word on it. My NLRB case is online at the NLRB site in a PDF file.

http://www.nlrb.gov/shared_files/Board%20Decisions/261/261-38.pdf

I was also fired last year on Feb. 22nd in retaliation to my having filed ADA charges against my employer. I was reinstated when my union took action and filed for binding arbitration. Because a contract was in force, it took only 4 months to return me to work.

Card check let's the employee decide on having an election or not. The employee simply checks election on the card. The union turns the cards in to the NLRB, not the employer. So the employer has no way of knowing who was in favor of a union.

OS

I owe my NLRB decision to MLK, JFK, and RFK. These 3 together placed the the name of Republican Howard Jenkins (a black man in the Labor Dept.) in nomination to the board. He went on to become known as Mr. NLRB. My case was one of his last and is brilliant.

[mdmc]

53. kick

[mdmc]

54. lucky for them they will never need to

both parties owe a great deal to corporatism