If you want to know why the Employee Free Choice Act slipped into a legislative coma, ask Peter D. Conrad. Conrad wrote an essay for The Metropolitan Corporate Counsel explaining in detail how the act, which began with great promise thanks to presidential support and a Democratic-led Congress, has become mercifully inert for U.S. workers. The reasons range from a strong bipartisan defense of the s... Read more »
If you believe its supporters, the Employee Free Choice Act should have been a done deal a long time ago. With presidential support and Democrats controlling large majorities in both chambers of Congress, it would be easy to assume EFCA was on its way to enactment in the opening days of the 111th Congress. But fortunately for American workers, opposition to EFCA is not the purely partisan matter i... Read more »
The national unemployment rate ticked up to 9.8 percent in September as the U.S. continued to struggle with the worst economic downturn in decades. The job loss is worse than experts had predicted; The New York Times has the grim economic details here: “The American economy shed another 263,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, reinforcing a broad assumption that man... Read more »
Predicting the fate of the Employee Free Choice Act has been difficult lately for the act’s supporters. Senate Democrats were once quite confident the act could pass and become law. After all, on paper, they had the 60 votes needed to stop a filibuster of the job-killing bill. Indeed, EFCA’s chances seemed sunny. But then clouds began to appear on the horizon: It turned out that several Democrats ... Read more »
The secret ballot is important not only to people in the United States. It’s important around the world, too. In New Zealand, National MP Tau Henare, a former union organizer, recently proposed a bill to make use of the secret ballot the official law in the island nation near Australia. The New Zealand Herald gives details of Henare’s measure here: “Unions will be legally bound to hold a secret ba... Read more »
Even if Democrats eventually decide to jettison the unpopular card check component that sets aside the secret ballot for workers, the Employee Free Choice Act is still dangerous. That’s what a group of Hoosier business executives wrote in a Sunday essay for The Star Press in Muncie, Ind.: “Some have talked about removing the secret ballot provision of S560, but the other provisions are equally dam... Read more »
President Obama is on an important mission this week – and its success depends on the secret ballot. The irony is worthy of a gold medal: After all, the Employee Free Choice Act, which Obama supports, sets aside the secret ballot for workers. The Washington Post gives the play by play here: “President Obama has decided to travel to Copenhagen to support the Chicago bid team seeking the 2016 Summer... Read more »
You can add South Dakota to the growing list of states that are taking a stand against the Employee Free Choice Act. Two state lawmakers said Thursday they will introduce a joint resolution preserving the secret ballot in South Dakota when the Legislature meets in January. If adopted, it will appear on the Mount Rushmore State’s 2010 ballot. The Argus Leader has the details here: “State Senate Maj... Read more »
The Employee Free Choice Act is probably not winning many supporters in Long Beach, Calif. – especially from tourists and business travelers who like a full night’s sleep. For more than two weeks, activists have been regularly protesting the local Hilton in an effort to organize the hotel’s workers through the public sign-up process known as card check – the centerpiece of EFCA. Lately, they have ... Read more »
A worker’s privacy. An employer’s freedom. The future of a wobbly U.S. economy. These are just a few of the issues at stake in the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act, but there’s one that particularly concerns the act’s biggest supporters: power. As Bloomberg News columnist Albert R. Hunt recently wrote in The New York Times, the future of Big Labor’s storied clout in Washington also rides o... Read more »
