Boehner: GOP Firmly Against ‘Card Check’
Posted by GOP Leader Press Office on November 20th, 2008
Featured in tomorrow’s Washington Times:
House Republican Leader John A. Boehner said Democrats’ use of secret ballots to chose its leadership was ironic because the party wants to nix workers’ rights to a secret voting in deciding whether to unionize.
“The secret ballot election is a cornerstone of our American democracy,” Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Thursday. “If it is good enough for House Democrats to rely on during today’s high-stakes vote, shouldn’t it be good enough for millions of American workers across America who value their workplace privacy?”
He vowed Republicans would stand firmly against the Democrat’s “card-check” legislation - dubbed the Employee Free Choice Act or EFCA. It would allow organizers to unionize a workplace by gathering enough singed cards rather than the current process of employees deciding by secret ballots…
…Enacting the card-check law is a top priority for organized labor and the unions are confident it will be passed by the Democrat-led Congress and signed by President-elect Barack Obama, a top AFL-CIO lobbyist told The Washington Times this week.
“I have no doubt it will pass and will be singed,” AFL-CIO government-affairs director William Samuel said in an exclusive interview.
Mr. Obama and House Democratic leaders supported the bill during House and Senate votes last year. Critics of the card check process say it leaves workers vulnerable to coercion and intimidation from either the management or the union organizers.
Mr. Boehner highlighted House Democrats’ use of a secret ballot Wednesday in deciding a bitter showdown between two Democratic titans - Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California and Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan - over control of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
House Democratic Caucus voted 137 to 122 to install the fiercely liberal Mr. Waxman and outs Mr. Dingell, whose close ties to U.S. automakers and the utility industry had put him as odds with the environmental agenda of Democratic leaders, including Mrs. Pelosi.
Mr. Boehner noted that Rep. Louise Slaughter, New York Democrat, earlier in the week expressed relief her vote in the Dingell-Waxman conflict would not be public. “It’s a secret ballot, thank the Lord,” she told Congressional Quarterly.
“Killing secret ballot rights in the workplace may be a priority for the special interests that have placed Democrats in charge of Washington, but it is not in the best interest of workers or our democratic system,” Mr. Boehner said.
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November 20th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I agree that votes weather to unionize or not should be secret! The only reason to not have a secret ballot on any vote is to be able to intimidate the voter with retribution.
That said; I think unions are past their prime and cause more trouble than they are worth. The UAW comes to mind, a good example of a union who insists on bloated sky-high non-competitive wages for its workers and an outlandish out-of-date pension plan that is killing the company that feeds them. Soon they will have no pay check at all…..and they will only have themselves to blame.
I do not feel sorry for union members who cannot see the forest for the trees. There is no logical reason any business should pay above market-value wages and put themselves out of business…….it does not do the worker any good because they will have NO JOB.
DUH!
November 22nd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Honorable Boehner,
As Congress and the Big Three automaker bandy about on what solution to impose to “solve” the crisis the automakers find themselves in, we need some original thinking here.
Let’s break down the environment for a second. The Big 3 automakers pay billions every quarter in corporate taxes. Then the Big 3 fly up to Washington D.C. to ask for $25 billion in loans to keep from going “out of business”, or so they say. Plus, factor in all the other businesses that are looking to get their hands in the “bailout”. Companies like American Express are looking to Washington for a hand-out. What we have here is a huge shell game where businesses like GM and Ford are essentially asking Congress to give them back the money they pay in corporate taxes.
Another way to look at this is: say you give me $50 a day because you have to. Days go on and you keep giving me the $50 but now you can’t afford the food you need to keep doing your thing. So what do you do? You ask me for $50 to buy the food you need, but you do so after you pay me the $50 for that day. What sense does it make for me to just give you your $50 back? What I should say is “No, you keep it.” That’s what Congress should do to stimulate the economy: tell American business, “No, you keep it.”
Why not doing something original here? Why not give the American business sector a real bailout? I propose that Congress give all businesses in America a two quarter tax amnesty. For six months, American corporations from the smallest start up entrepreneur to the biggest of the big, to include the evil Exxon-Mobile, would be given tax amnesty. This amnesty would be an across the board pump to the economy by allowing businesses to keep all their profits while not needing to crank up the printing presses of the federal government to give them their money back. This has the added benefit of taking Congress out of the process of deciding who gets “bailed out” or not. After the initial six months, Congress could then relook the economy and make a determination on whether or not conditions are right to reimpose the corporate tax rate or to what percentage the rate needs to be set at.
I see this solution as a much simpler method of trying to figure out who gets bailed out or not. Let them keep their own money for a little while and bail themselves out and see what kind of rocket this economy becomes as it takes off. I think everyone will be shocked to see the massive rebound that occurs in the business sector. We might actually be able to make the $700 billion “bailout package” go away because it is no longer needed.
Let’s try this and see what happens. It can’t be any worse than what Secretary Paulsen and the “wizards of smart” have tried already.
Thank you for your leadership,
MAJ Richard Wellman
US Army
December 4th, 2008 at 9:46 am
This card check being pushed is the right to earn less money for the same amount of work
December 7th, 2008 at 12:27 am
I agree that votes weather to unionize or not should be secret! The only reason to not have a secret ballot on any vote is to be able to intimidate the voter with retribution.
December 11th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
I think unions are past their prime and cause more trouble than they are worth. Thanks for the leadership.