HOUSE Republican Leader John Boehner

Card-checkocracy

Today the Chicago Tribune takes a closer look at The Employee Free Choice Act:

Organized labor helped elect Barack Obama and now eagerly awaits his promised support for its top priority—a bill that would make it easier to set up union locals…

The so-called card-check bill would not protect workers and it would not be “free choice.” It would strip away their right to vote in secret, making it more likely they would face intimidation from organizers and other workers. The pressure would be on to check the card, whether or not they actually wanted a union.

It’s clear why union bosses want this law. Union membership ticked up last year, but it has been plunging for half a century….Union leaders prefer to blame the decline on federal labor laws, which they say make it too hard to organize. That’s a pretty flimsy argument. Present law allows the National Labor Relations Board to call for an election by secret ballot after 30 percent of employees at a work site have requested a vote. That’s hardly a high hurdle.

There are ways to recast the nation’s labor laws so workers’ interests are protected, without subjecting them to more intimidation by union organizers…In short, create more incentives for labor and management to negotiate in good faith and preserve the workers’ right to a secret ballot…

The inaptly named Employee Free Choice Act would be good for labor bosses. But it wouldn’t be good for laborers.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008 at 12:25 pm and is filed under card check. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Card-checkocracy”

1. Julia Says:
   December 9th, 2008 at 10:24 am

   A “free-choice” is exactly what card check is not!
   There should be a law against naming any bill or amendment something that is intended to mislead such as this one.
   Please fight against this bad bill; and please fight against bringing in more cheap foreign labor to compete with Americans for our jobs! DO NOT increase the numbers of work visa’s given out!

   533,000 Jobs Lost in NOVEMBER — But the Feds Imported Another 140,000 Foreign Workers the Same Month!
   How can this make any sense for the American people’s own government to be recruiting more competitors for a dwindling number of jobs?

2. Richard Says:
   December 19th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

   I am sick of all the politicians, PACs, Unions and other special interest organizations that try to pull the wool over the eyes of the American public with deceptively named proposals. The rampant corruption and dishonesty REQUIRE that we read carefully and with gimlet eyes every proposition, especially the teeny tiny fine print.

   The secret ballot is our most precious protection against tyranny and we should defend it to the death.

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