thetruthaboutefca.com | The Truth About The Employee Free Choice Act & Card Check

The New York Times reports:

A half-dozen senators friendly to labor have decided to drop a central provision of a bill that would have made it easier to organize workers.

The so-called card-check provision — which senators decided to scrap to help secure a filibuster-proof 60 votes — would have required employers to recognize a union as soon as a majority of workers signed cards saying they wanted a union. Currently, employers can insist on a secret-ballot election, a higher hurdle for unions.

The abandonment of card check was another example of the power of moderate Democrats to constrain their party’s more liberal legislative efforts. Though the Democrats have a 60-40 vote advantage in the Senate, and President Obama supports the measure, several moderate Democrats opposed the card-check provision as undemocratic.

They’re certainly correct there. But the newer version of EFCA still will have problems, with the Times reporting of card check:

In its place, several Senate and labor officials said, the revised bill would require shorter unionization campaigns and faster elections … Though some details remain to be worked out, under the expected revisions, union elections would have to be held within five or 10 days after 30 percent of workers signed cards favoring having a union. Currently, the campaigns often run two months.

Ten days still hardly allows both sides to be heard in a crucial campaign. Often by the time a petition has been filed employees have only heard the union’s pitch without getting to hear any of the fine print — dues, being required to strike, paying into failing pension funds, etc. And the bill would still contain the poison pill of government-mandated arbitration.

Finally, this note on timing:

Union officials have urged the White House and Senate leaders to schedule a vote this month. But Senate leaders have told labor that the Senate is so preoccupied with health care legislation that September would be the earliest time to take up the pro-union legislation.

UPDATE: Here’s Shopfloor’s take on a quick-election-plus-arbitration “compromise”:

In which case unions achieve the advantages they would have gained through card check provisions: You can intimidate 30 percent of employees to sign a card, and then ram through an election before the employers have a chance to explain their point of view. Labor organizers want employees to hear ONLY the union perspective and then vote in a climate of artificial crisis.

Meanwhile, binding arbitration — a process that denies both employers and employees a voice — remains in the bill. Any labor bill that contains binding arbitration is unacceptable to employers, who need to actually run their companies in order to create products and pay employees.

Congress should not be “compromising” such fundamental principles away.

Tags: Compromise, Protecting Secret Ballots