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

The Birmingham News has a great take on union density figures and the need for card check in that an increase in the former means a decrease in the rationale for the latter.

The News says the argument for EFCA is undercut:

Back to Alabama, where instead of union membership declining, membership is increasing, even as unemployment continues to rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership climbed by 10,000 workers in 2009, to a total of 181,000. The number of state residents represented by unions (they’re covered by union contracts but are not official union members) rose to 212,000, or 12 percent of all state workers.

Alabama’s percentage of union workers is more than double border states Tennessee (5.1 percent), Mississippi (4.8 percent) and Georgia (4.6 percent). Alabama’s story doesn’t help the unions make their case.
With Congress expected to become more Republican after this year’s elections, union leaders know they’re running out of time on this lousy card-check idea.

Exactly.

Perhaps you haven’t heard, but two more former ACORN employees have been charged with voter fraud for their small part in the large rash of voter registration “irregularities.” ACORN is going so far as to say it’s a “victimless crime.” M’kay.

Such a blase attitude may be warranted if the cards were something as unimportant as a supermarket discount card, a nice coupon for half off the second entree at the local Mexican restaurant, maybe even a library card. But a voter registration card? Voting is the cornerstone of participatory democracy, and that card is the key to getting in — it’s the ultimate franchise.

So it’s interesting to note ACORN sibling SEIU’s view of the cards that are the key to the labor realm — union authorization cards that would be the one-stop sign-up for dues, work rules, failing pensions, fines, strikes, and more. While most Americans are outraged unions would try to form without letting people vote, SEIU says the card will take care of it. No need to offer the protection of a secret ballot vote, nothing to see here, move along folks.

Of course, there’s plenty of allegations to suggest that SEIU doesn’t really value the secret ballots of its own members, so perhaps cards really aren’t the answer to any problem. Perhaps SEIU isn’t worried about process, but just outcome. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking is usually bad for employees.

Just something to think about.

Over at NPR sits an interesting argument: The president can have a “hinge” moment “to do something he hasn’t done particularly well during his first year in office: successfully defy his opponents and, at the same time, reassure his most loyal supporters.”

The way he can achieve such a political victory? Force through the installation of the Card Check King, otherwise known as National Labor Relations Board nominee — and SEIU and AFL-CIO lawyer — Craig Becker.

Unfortunately for employers, employees, and everyone else, Becker is off the wall. Those aren’t our words, they’re the words of a top Senator, Orrin Hatch.

So, we ask: Would winning a Becker battle be a “hinge” moment or a “fringe” moment? We think the facts speak for themselves, but ask yourself one final question: If Becker weren’t so far outside the mainstream and so dedicated to decreasing employer and employee speech at the expense of union power, would the powerful SEIU rest so many of its hopes on him?

Mark Tapscott writes:

Big Labor is covering its bets against the likelihood that President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress won’t be able to deliver Card Check to kill the secret ballot in workplace representation elections. The sidebet is at the three-member National Mediation Board.

Never heard of it? Well, the NMB was established by FDR during the New Deal to mediate labor-management disputes in the railroad industry, then had its regulatory purview expanded to include the airline industry. The NMB has the power to impose compulsory arbitration when labor and management are unable to reach a settlement within 30 days.

Two of the three members now on the NMB are former union officials, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, who came to the board from, respectively, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) unions. President Obama appointed Puchala.

Certainly something to keep an eye on.

Our friends at Shopfloor.org put as a question to Sen. Orrin Hatch whether the President should continue pushing for Craig Becker to sit on the National Labor Relations Board.

The answer? Nope. No. Nein. The Senator said:

The man is off the wall. He’s very smart, I mean, I don’t mean to demean him. He’s a smart man. In fact that’s one of the problems. He will do any thing to help the SEIU and the AFL-CIO. Anything!

And that includes doing by regulation at the NLRB that which you could never get through legislation, and once they do that, I think it would be not only unconstitutional, but, you know, illegal, but it would take years all the way through the Supreme Court to change it. And that’s what they’re up to.

I can’t believe the president would put Becker up there, knowing how very …That was even a bipartisan vote against Becker, by the way, and I’d be very surprised if he did that.

Fantastic work, as always, by Carter Wood and the Shopfloor team.

Of course, we believe in positive solutions, so we offer: If the President is looking for a gentle way to break with Big Labor on this issue, here are 101 ways to say no.

There’s a great piece over at LaborUnionReport.com, which has this set up:

Given the above, one would think that a union boss would behappy thrilled to hear that his own union’s  workers signed union authorization cards and want to unionize…right? Further, one would think that said union boss would readily recognize his workers’ union using the card check method…right? After all, the ends do justify the means and with all the money that has been spent, the politicians that have been bought, the lies that have been told, card-check is good…right?

… and then points to this story …

In about a month, 20 secretaries, clerks, and administrators – all employees of one of the city’s most storied unions – will participate in a National Labor Relations Board election to decide whether they want to be represented by a union themselves.

Ironically, their employer, longtime labor leader Henry Nicholas, declined to recognize the bargaining unit when he was presented with signed petition cards from a majority of the workers.

Nicholas is a staunch supporter of a proposed federal law known as “card check,” which would allow unions to organize workplaces without a separate election if a majority of workers sign cards requesting representation.

The Labor Relations Board has scheduled an April 2 election for the employees of District 1199C of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).