“All quiet on the western front.” No, I am not referring to the 1930 movie about World War I. At least it has been quiet on one major piece of pending national legislation known as “card check” or more formally the “Employee Free Choice Act,” EFCA, H.R. 800 and S.1041.
While CEO’s of the “big 3” meet with Congress seeking billions of taxpayer dollars to stay afloat, we hear that organized labor unions may be prepared to make some concessions. Folks. That’s who got us in the box as it relates to the high cost of every domestically produced automobile and truck of U.S. corporations.
While I do not oppose the opportunity for workers to join organized labor it should be by a “federally supervised private ballot” election.
The following article is from Diane Stafford of the Kansas City Star newspaper. While I am posting it here the story link can be found at the end of the post.
Businesses gird for the Employee Free Choice Act debate
By DIANE STAFFORDThe Kansas City Star
Say “card check” — and watch employers go weak in the knees, human resource managers sweat, and employment law attorneys gear up for business.
“Card check” is shorthand for the Employee Free Choice Act, a piece of legislation expected to be a top priority when Congress reconvenes in January.
The AFL-CIO says the act will improve workers’ rights to collectively bargain for better pay and working conditions.
The Heritage Foundation and other management-oriented organizations say the act will take away worker privacy and freedom.
At issue is how a union might be established in a workplace.
Currently, if union organizers get 30 percent of employees in a work group to sign union-interest cards, the National Labor Relations Board orders an election. A secret ballot election is held about six weeks later, giving both union and employer time to campaign pro or con.
The Employee Free Choice Act would change the organizing rules. If a majority of employees in a work group sign a union card (that’s the “card check”), the union would become the official bargaining unit — no more six-week waiting period giving employers time to make a case against the union; no more subsequent election.
“It may be all done before you have any idea it’s going on,” warned one of several employment law attorneys I’ve heard speak in the last few weeks at seminars for human resource managers and business owners.
There’s already a lot on the plates of human resource managers. Changes in the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act are vying for their attention.
But nothing seems to lather up employment law attorneys — whose clients are employers — as much as the possibility that the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law.
A bill passed last session in the House but died in a Senate filibuster. With changes in the Senate in the November election, the appetite may be stronger for passage. And, whereas President George W. Bush promised a veto, President-elect Barack Obama supported the act during his campaign. As proposed, the act also would mandate arbitration for collective bargaining agreements, setting 120 days as the limit to resolve issues. Currently, unions and employers can bargain till the cows come home.
It could be that the act is too divisive for Obama to embrace early in his term. It could be that congressional representatives, who voted for it before because of the “cover” from Bush’s guaranteed veto, will change their votes. It could be that the votes just won’t be there in the Senate.
But, just in case, Shelly Freeman, principal in the human resources consulting firm of HROI, had some sound advice at a recent Lathrop & Gage legal seminar:
Employees who feel valued and rewarded don’t necessarily feel the need for a union.
The time is now for employers to be visible and communicate with their workers.
The time is now for employers to have ready answers when employees ask them to compare what a union can offer workers in terms of pay, benefits, job security, safety, other work issues, and voice.
Perhaps (and this is me talking) it’s also time to consider profit sharing or, at the least, more open-book management practices that make employees feel and act more like owners.
How one feels about the Employee Free Choice Act comes down to how one feels about unions.
Any student of the American workplace knows that many worker benefits and working conditions are due to unionization. But one also knows that some unions have tarnished public opinion about collective bargaining.
And, in a land where entrepreneurship and Horatio Alger up-from-the-bootstraps stories are prized, many workers want to prosper on individual merit.
Advocates of the act believe that the balance of power has tipped too far in favor of employers and that individual workers aren’t getting their fair share of corporate and executive profits.
Opponents think the power lies just where it should.
http://www.kansascity.com/196/story/921188.html
Juice readers. “The card-check process does not give employees a choice at all. Instead, it gives union organizers the choice of whether to organize through a card check process. If the union chose to submit authorization cards, workers would be barred from seeking an election.” Further, “those employees who do not want a union do not have a voice and are in effect removed from the process of making decisions about their jobs.”
In your opinion, how should our Orange County Congressional representatives and Senators Boxer and Feinstein vote on this Bill?
If “card check” is passed we will see the same business bankrupting union demands which have sunk the US auto industry – only more widespread.
Larry and Junior,
Bunk. The auto industry is hurting like the rest of the industries in this company. Bush and Wall Street bankrupt this country and the only scapegoat you all can up with is the unions.
And it’s especially sad to see Junior falling for all the anti-union GOP rhetoric, when he knows he should naturally be an ally of unions (I say without giving away too much of his identity, I hope…)
Vern – I am not very concerned about “card check” – it is not likely to pass the Senate.
Are you concerned about employees having the right to a secret ballot?
OC Dil, .. uh, Sha-dow
Why do you think that the unions are coming to the table now and are willing to give up benefits? How many industries do you know in which the average worker makes $75.00 per with benefits? And how do you feel about the right to a secret ballot?
How many industries do you know in which the average worker makes $75.00 per with benefits?
Ah, YOU fell for that right-wing lie, Junior? I thought I would hear it first from Larry. There is no industry where the average worker makes 75 an hour.
In the unionized big-3 automakers, the average worker makes 28 an hour (compared to 24 an hour at for example Toyota); they also enjoy benefits & pension that get them up to 38 an hour.
The 75 lie which has become so popular with rightwingers who want to use the current crisis to bust unions once and for all can be traced back to an anti-union writer Andrew Ross Sorkin at the (!) New York Times; he achieved that amazing figure by adding in health benefits and pensions paid to retired workers and dead workers’ surviving spouses – doesn’t seem like a problem, but Sorkin added all of that together and then DIVIDED BY THE HOURS CURRENT EMPLOYEES NOW WORK. Can you see how deceptive there is, or should I let Keith explain it? Bottom line, the true figure is $28, with health benefits and pensions bringing it to around $38.
Video here, maybe I should post this properly:
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/countdown-worst-person-taking-70-hour-auto
(starting at 1:44)
[Wow, I see you’ve taken it even farther though; the original lie was $70 including benefits, now YOU’VE GOT $75 WITH (not including) benefits! – Nice job…]
Oh my, what will that cottage industry of lawyers and goons do without anti union campaigns to run? I guess turn to an honest living (naaaa – they’re lawyers & goons probably go to work for the RNC).
Nice job Junior, now we know that you know who the shadow is and that you can’t keep secrets… any personal sexual peccadilloes you’d like to confess while you’re at it, loose lips?
Got news for you Vern – that is how the cost is calculated and allocated. The total cost of healthcare, pensions, etc. divided by the total hours of those working to pay those bennies.
If the cost of the bennies goes down, so does the cost per hour allocated to active emplyees.
Also, you have not gotten back to me on how you feel about the secret ballot issue.
Anonyms,
The dems have their legions of liars (lawyers) and union goons as well.
As for the rest – I will just keep you wondering.
“A bill passed last session in the House but died in a Senate filibuster. With changes in the Senate in the November election, the appetite may be stronger for passage. And, whereas President George W. Bush promised a veto, President-elect Barack Obama supported the act during his campaign.”
Hmm, it is still the old Senate. The new Senate doesn’t come in until after the Inauguration.
And bills that aren’t laws by then are gone.
It would have to be re-introduced, which takes quite some time.
Amazing that neither the reporter nor Larry seem to know how Congress works…
Joe.
Was that an oxymoron. “How Congress works?”
Whatever sophistry you use, Junior, it’s a lie to say that unionized workers make “$75 with benefits.”
They make “$28 with benefits” OR “$48 INCLUDING benefits.” Those other costs are for OTHER workers, having nothing to do with the workers who are working now.
Don’t know enough about card check vs. secret ballot; that’s why I haven’t commented on that; that’s just how I am. If the unions say card check makes it easier for workers to unionize without being intimidated, I tend to believe them and think that’s a good thing.
Vern. My position is not anti union. My dad was in a union at a time when unions were necessary in fighting employer abuses. The real question is why do we now have to change the election process after all these years?
If a secret election is held and the majority of the workers prefer the union shop than it will happen. Do you have a problem with that?
With regard to the auto industry. In the 60’s and 70’s my older brother was in a union at the BOP plant in Edison, NJ
He often told me of all the benefits they were able to negotiate from G.m. rather than going on strike.
We now live in a global marketplace. Immediately after World War II we had total control of manufacturing with Europe and Japanese manufacturing plants destroyed. We also were building many homes for returning vet’s such as Levittown on Long Island, NY and in New Jersey. Today we are forced to compete against other established nations some of whom subsidize their industries such as Korean automobiles.
A few years ago Kiplinger published a report of which I am posting a few important paragraphs.
“Increased organizing alone won’t reverse the long decline in overall (union)membership. Organized labor now represents a bit less than 8% of private-sector workers, although 36% of government workers are in unions. The dissident unions’ strength with lower-paying service-sector workers whose jobs can’t be offshored to India or China can’t offset its lack of appeal to higher-paid workers in fast-growing technology jobs that are the future of the U.S. economy.
Unions in mature industries will have to adapt to survive. They’ll have to take on more risk, swapping steady annual wage increases for performance bonuses and profit sharing, paying more for health care and building retirement security through 401(k)s instead of pensions.
More will follow the example of Southwest Airlines, whose entire workforce, except managers, is unionized. By agreeing to contracts of eight to 10 years, with an opportunity to adjust them after five years if needed, union workers give Southwest executives the stability needed for long-range planning. They also accept flexible work rules aimed at pleasing customers while holding down costs, a formula that keeps the airline ahead of its rivals.”
Notice the key word. SURVIVAL. If we drive employers into the ground on wages and benefits, and if they cannot pass those increased costs onto their buyers, guess what. No sales followed immediately by no jobs. Clear enough?
Larry,
You got me on that one…
Vern says: “Those other costs are for OTHER workers, having nothing to do with the workers who are working now.”
Okay Vern tell me how are those costs for “OTHER workers” to be allocated other than through current and active employees – out of thin air??
As far as the secret ballot goes, you are swallowing the union BS – hook, line & sinker; that is not like you Vern. I side with the tradition and sanctity of the secret ballot.
When you sign a card indicating interest in joining a union you have voted. If you dont want a union dont sign a card.
Elections simply give management more time to intimidate workers for standing up for their rights
CD said: “When you sign a card indicating interest in joining a union you have voted. If you dont want a union dont sign a card.”
Yeah CD, and who is standing there holding that card for you to sign?
Who is going to remember who signed cards and who didn’t sign cards?
The union goons – that’s who.
Now I get the point of “Chinese Democracy” – like that guy standing in front of the tank in Tianamen Square – Chinese democracy in action.
Card Check will NEVER pass the US Seanate – too many conservative dems there now to go with the conservative reeps.