Card Check Bad for America

More than 50% of americans don't want to ban abortion; more than 50% support gay civil unions.

college degree | Graduate Certificate program | online business administration degree

In other words, he isn't being paid to respond to twerps like me - he hears only his master's voice.

I do think that he has, in essence, conceeded, my point, but he did still slip in:

protect workers rights to a secret ballot

so I'm not completely mollified.

...thank you for using the language of the bill as your premise. Now we can intelligently discuss this issue like responsible Republicans. I just wish our party's corporate leadership would see its grassroots in a similar light and act accordingly.

But before I address your point; I would like to take a moment here to do a little house-cleaning. I am not a labor expert. In fact, I have been self-employed for most of my working career. I came at this issue the same way I hope every true Republican addresses an issue -- I could be wrong in my layman's understanding of the language of this bill -- but show me your evidence and I will form my own opinion and make up my own mind.

Now to your point. Yes, what you have copied of HR800 Section 2(a)(6) is mostly correct. And I am sure you didn't leave anything out you thought was important on purpose, but you did leave something out of your copy above. You left out the very first sentence of HR800 SEC. 2(a)(6) "Notwithstanding any other provision of this section"...What it is telling you is that when the company learns its workers are signing union pledge cards, it can still call for a secret ballot of its workers to decide the issue, as per another provision of this section, before the union reaches 50% +1 signed pledge cards.

Now because of the new EFCA guidelines, the company will be put on notice that the union will be recognized when it gets to -- the bill says 50% + 1 -- but the practical effect is that no union is going to the NLRB with just 50% + 1 signed pledged cards. Employees sign union pledge cards for many, many reasons. I would say any union that goes to the NLRB to demand recognition will have at least 75% to 80% of the workforce signed up. So the practical effect of this EFCA legislation is that it will give the company more reason to call first for a secret ballot of its workforce rather than waiting and engaging in firing, intimidating or coercing its own employees during the card signing process.

One more small note of interest. In Saul's posting above, he mentions a recently released study by University of Chicago economist Prof. Anne Layne-Farrar (no relation), who points out that if the union bosses estimates are correct, we could lose some 600,000 jobs the first year EFCA takes effect nationwide?

This same study was posted at GOPTEC SUMMIT.ning.com, but through a third-party. When I went to that site, the same study printed. However, it did have a "Comment" section, wherein I learned that the good professor was a Human Resource consultant to some industry association, and had been paid by that industry association for her study. When I mentioned this fact at GOPTEC SUMMIT.ning.com site, they took the whole posting down, including my remarks.

ex animo

davidfarrar

When employees want to form a union, they have to go through a process that looks more like the discredited practices of rogue regimes abroad than like anything we would call American.

For an election to be "free and fair," both sides must have equal access to media and the voters. But not under labor law. Anti-union managers are free to campaign to every employee, every day, throughout the day; but pro-union employees can campaign only on break time.  Furthermore, management can post anti-union propaganda on bulletin boards and walls — while prohibiting pro-union employees from doing the same.  By law, employers can force workers to attend mass anti-union propaganda events.  Not only are pro-union employees not given equal time, but they can be forced to attend on condition that they not ask any questions.  Recent data show that workers are forced to attend between five and 10 such one-sided meetings. If, during the 2004 presidential campaign, the Democrats could have forced every voter in America to watch Fahrenheit 9/11 (or if the Republicans could have forced everyone to watch the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth video), with no opportunity for response from the other side, none of us would have called this "democracy."

--Gordon Lafer

July 16, 2007	Employees begin meeting to discuss forming a union to improve compensation and address the safety concerns from working with serious psychiatric patients.
August 2-3	Supervisors interrogate employees to determine who is behind the union effort.
August 2	Company fires two union supporters.
August 3	With a majority of employees signing union authorization cards, the Service Employees International Union petitions the NLRB to hold an election, which the agency scheduled for September.
August 6	Company fires third union supporter.
August 7	Company fires fourth union supporter.
August 7	Company calls the police to stop a union representative who was legally handing out information to employees on a public road.
August 10	A supervisor swerves his car within feet of an employee legally handing out union information and threatens to call the police if they don’t stop.

Right now, 30% of employers illegally fire workers during union organization drives; 23% of workers in majority sign-up elections, the kind the EFCA would allow, "report management coercion to oppose the union"; and 46% report similar coercion in what WalMart and their allies would like you to call "secret ballot" elections.

And there you go! just a little bit of sunlight -- Anuzis and Ruffini are both being paid to advocate against EFCA.

If you need more, I got tons. facts are king -- except if you want to distort truth. then you scream about secret ballot elections (which is really saying nine weeks of intimidation and hell)

and that is my point.

I am worried that this could be used to make it easier for Unions to intimidate workers to form unions, I want to here what safety precauations would be taken against this.

but thats not what the Republican argument is, now is it.

Democrats want to take way your right to a secret ballot, and that is obviously not true, and thats my point when I am mislead then I distrust anything else they have to say on the opinion.

by ignoring that it doesn't eliminate the secret ballot but gives a different option that could have a potential for abuse, I feel misled and thus distrust Republicans on this issue.

I to would like some of your questions answered, but Republican leaders aren't asking those questions are they, they are simply saying that democrats want getting rid of your right to a secret ballot, which from where I sit is mis-leading.

I am a pro-union Republican myself, which is why i am dismayed the Republican leaders are trying to mislead, instead of actually waging a constructive debate.