Posts Tagged ‘Sen. Tom Harkin’
Card Check: So Lame (Duck Session)
If you can’t beat ‘em, sneak it through the back door at the 11th hour when the world has rejected you and your agenda.
That’s the potential scenario envisioned by The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, who is doing great reporting to highlight these statements by leading Democratic politicians:
In the House, Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters last month that for bills like “card check”—the measure to curb secret-ballot union elections—”the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future.”
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate committee overseeing labor issues, told the Bill Press radio show in June that “to those who think [card check] is dead, I say think again.” He told Mr. Press “we’re still trying to maneuver” a way to pass some parts of the bill before the next Congress is sworn in.
Let’s see … “trying to maneuver” a way to pass an unfair, anti-democratic, anti-employer, anti-speech, job-killing law when everyone thinks the world has moved onto a new agenda.
That’s the very definition of lame.
Photo credit: flickr/tifotter
UAW Promises Not To Wait For EFCA To Attack Toyota
According to The Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso, Sen. Tom Harkin “is now openly discussing the possibility of passing pro-union legislation after voters have already rendered a verdict on the union-friendly 111th Congress.” Harkin today told The Hill that: “A lot of things can happen in a lame-duck session.”
That means, when people have been booted out of office they can still do a heck of a number on the economy.
Speaking of which …
The new head of the United Auto Workers — those wascally wabits who have done more than their fair share to put the brakes on the domestic auto companies they unionized and helped drive to Bailoutville — he’s not waiting around for the Employee Free Choice Act to try to repeat the union’s record at primarily non-union Toyota. He said “We’re going to pound on Toyota until they recognize the First Amendment right to come into the UAW” …
And what of the First Amendment right to not associate with others upon one’s own choice, especially in the case when a “card check” process may not be the best way of figuring out what the majority prefers?
Card Check, Hissing, Booing and Foot Stomping
Remember those Pennsylvania union demonstrations involving union activists booing and shouting down those who disagreed with them, and the subsequent question we raised about what that portends for a post-card check world?
Well, one of our readers with a particularly good memory pointed us to a video of Sen. Tom Harkin — the Senate’s point man on the Employee Free Choice Act — earlier this year telling a Senate committee hearing room that “I don’t want to permit any hissing or booing or foot-stomping or throwing of things like that.” (Link here, see minute 43:00)
First it was the good Senator supporting secret ballots, which EFCA would effectively eliminate. Now he’s concerned about the exact type of behavior recently demonstrated by organized labor and the reason for concern in doing away with secret ballots. Once again, we find ourselves agreeing whole-heartedly with Sen. Harkin on key principles. We continue to hope those statements will inform his positions on the terrifyingly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act.
When It Comes To Card Check, Hope Is Not A Plan
Michael O’Brien over at The Hill is reporting “Controversial “card check” legislation will hopefully make its way through the Senate this fall, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) said Tuesday.”
Harkin told the “liberal Bill Press” show (as O’Brien puts it) that EFCA is “something that we have to do.” O’Brien’s take is that Harkin is “hopeful” for a vote on EFCA this Fall.
But hope is not a plan and we don’t see too many ways that EFCA will come up for a vote while it remains so wildly unpopular.
Reminder: The only way to ensure a victory against this dreadful bill is to keep active, keep fighting. Contact your legislators now!
Card Check: The Bill That Dare Not Speak Its Name
Great catch by the Workforce Freedom Initiative. The Workforce Management magazine reports that some companies that have supported card check in the past have come out against the Employee Free Choice Act — which would mandate, rather than allow, the card check process. Who knows, maybe they have learned the hard way?
More important is this nugget from Senator Tom Harkin, the big cheese in pushing EFCA in the Senate: “Certain words have gotten toxic, like card check, so we don’t use those words anymore.”
Well, as our mama always told us, “toxic is as toxic does.” And what EFCA does to employees is toxic.
