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.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has just about the best roundup of this year’s drive by organized labor to push a radical agenda which includes, of course, card check, Craig Becker’s nomination for the NLRB, and socialized medicine.

The paper’s advice to Big Labor:

Union membership in the private sector fell 10 percent during Mr. Obama’s first year in office, to a historic low of 7.2 percent. A poll last month from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that only 41 percent of those surveyed now have a favorable view of unions, compared with 58 percent in a similar survey in 2007.

It’s up to them, of course, but maybe the AFL-CIO should simply announce it’s going to work next fall for the party that has the best plan to cut government spending, cut taxes and thus allow private employers to create new jobs. Because a change of course seems advisable. And dumping the radical, far-left agenda — which the rank and file have never considered a hill to die for — might be a start.

That would be good advice, but we’re quite confident Big Labor is going in the wrong direction. It is pushing PLA’s, Davis-Bacon Act red tape, and now the unfortunately named “high road” contracting requirements that are the biggest threat to efficient government spending we’ve seen in ages.

Despite the positive signs that elected leaders right now have little appetite for card check and the Employee Free Choice Act, Investors Business Daily reminds readers:

The legislation, which failed in Congress in 2007, was a priority a year ago for the young administration. But the public didn’t like it, and neither did a few Democratic senators. It appeared to be dead.

In reality, though, it’s merely wounded. The unions want card check to be part of a federal jobs bill. Another reason to kill legislation that won’t create or save any meaningful private-sector jobs.

Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus once said of card check legislation: “This is how a civilization disappears.” He may be exaggerating a bit. But he’s not far off.

It would certainly be cynical to include jobs-killing language in jobs legislation.

The Arkansas News weighs in against the nomination of Craig Becker, a top lawyer for the AFL-CIO and SEIU, to join the National Labor Relations Board:

Presidents deserve wide latitude in filling executive branch positions. But given his far-left philosophical leanings, the possibility that Mr. Becker would use the post to help organized labor impose its agenda through the back door without congressional consent is a real concern.

Mr. Becker’s nomination will likely come up as soon as this week. If they stick together, Senate Republicans have the ability to ensure it’s DOA — and that’s precisely what they should do.

Agreed!

The August Chronicle says of the Craig Becker nomination for the National Labor Relations Board: “Not without a fight!”

Our friends at Shopfloor.org report that the powerful, though highly troubled, SEIU has sent an email to Capitol Hill threatening informing them that the nomination of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board “is the highest priority for organized labor…”

And here we thought we were a nation of laws, not of men.

Why is this man so important to the union? At the Board, Becker could create de facto laws like card check by fiat. That’s precisely why SEIU, which has blown card check for the entire labor movement, is desperate to get their own lawyer on the top agency in the land. Don’t believe us? Shopfloor also points to this recount at Huffington Post:

The White House urged unions not to launch a public campaign around his appointment, arguing that it would pass Congress via an “inside game,” a source working on the process told the Huffington Post.

It’s never good when secrecy cloaks deliberative processes. And the process is no longer under the radar. One West Virginia newspaper has noticed and weighed in on the editorial page:

Appointing Becker to this board is like appointing George Steinbrenner of the New York Yankees to the umpiring crew in the World Series.

Sens. Jay Rockefeller and Robert C. Byrd should oppose this nomination.

It will be important to see if Massachusetts Sen.-elect Scott Brown can be seated — or if traditional Senate decorum — can overcome dirty pool by union bosses who are hoping to use an illegitimate majority to dramatically alter the workforce landscape of America.