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Secret Ballot Watch

EFCA State Update: Colorado

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

If the Employee Free Choice Act becomes law and sets aside the secret ballot for workers, voters in Colorado will have a chance to set it back. The Centennial State’s Supreme Court recently declared the three – count ‘em, three – ballot initiatives to protect the secret ballot are fair under state law. The Daily Camera praised this decision and weighed in on the debate here: “The misnamed Employee... Read more »

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go To the Polls

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

How many ways are there to interfere with a union election? While the Employee Free Choice Act has been receiving most of the attention, few realize there are other proposals out there that also would affect workers’ rights at the ballot box. The latest attack occurred Monday at the National Mediation Board on a 75-year-old election rule that covers thousands of airline and railway workers. The Wa... Read more »

“Mr. President, Mr. Stern Is Here To See You … Again.”

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

The White House released some of its visitor logs last week and one name on them may not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the mercifully mired Employee Free Choice Act. The No. 1 visitor is Andrew Stern, a big-time union chief and major EFCA stakeholder. The Wall Street Journal fills us in on Stern’s visits to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. here: “Andrew Stern, the president of the Serv... Read more »

Pro-EFCA Ad Strikes Out

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

It’s the bottom of the ninth inning for supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act – and they are getting desperate. With only a few weeks left in the legislative season, the AFL-CIO swung for the fences this week by co-sponsoring a full-page pro-EFCA ad in three Capitol Hill newspapers. It featured the ad’s other co-sponsor, another notable labor union. Was that union the Teamsters? The Internati... Read more »

Secret Ballots Abroad: Canada

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

They tried mail-in ballots and even considered voting by Internet. But in the end, residents of a small Canadian city wanted to go back to the best method of voting: secret ballot. City elders in Clarington, Ontario, voted to restore the secret-ballot method for the 2010 local elections after hearing from a number of residents concerned about the “unsupervised” nature of both mail-in and online vo... Read more »

Standing Up for the Secret Ballot

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

A recent MediaNews Group editorial that appeared in California’s Contra Costa Times praised Sen. Dianne Feinstein for her reluctance to support the Employee Free Choice Act, whose card check provision is a “slap in the face to democratic principles.” The newspaper chain makes an effective case against legislation to do away with secret ballot unionizing elections. Its arguments echo the concerns o... Read more »

Want More Jobs? Scrap EFCA.

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

There are four ways for Congress and President Obama to create more jobs in America – and one of them is to “renounce” the Employee Free Choice Act. That’s what University of Chicago economics professor Steven J. Davis says in a recent essay for Forbes magazine. Davis writes that instead of extending unemployment benefits or pursuing other policies that would drive up the deficit, lawmakers should... Read more »

More Reasons EFCA Must Fail No. 1: The Unemployment Rate Is Already Too High, And EFCA Would Make It Worse

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

With recent figures at 9.4 percent, 9.7 percent, and 9.8 percent, how high will the national unemployment rate go? It’s a question that should give supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act pause. Here are some grim details of the September unemployment figures, courtesy of The New York Times: “During the technology boom of the late 1990s, Mr. Lamirande, 62, worked for I.B.M., where he drew a sal... Read more »

More Reasons EFCA Must Fail No. 2: A Federal Agency Has Already Declared A Key Feature of EFCA “Unreliable”

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

Although the Employee Free Choice Act has been tied up for months in Congress, we already have an idea what one federal agency thinks about “card check,” a key part of the legislation. Its verdict? “Unreliable.” In September, The Washington Times reported that the Legal Services Corp., which provides grants to legal-aid groups that help the poor, determined the card check method of organizing to b... Read more »

More Reasons EFCA Must Fail No. 3: Even EFCA Supporters Seem Confused About What’s In the Bill

| Posted in Secret Ballot Watch

There’s a compromise version of the Employee Free Choice Act that’s almost ready … or is it? In a speech before the AFL-CIO last month, Sen. Arlen Specter said an EFCA deal had been “pounded out” and it would pass before year’s end. The newly Democratic lawmaker received great applause from the crowd in response to this surprising announcement. He also received a great many questions from reporter... Read more »

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