Opening Statement of Rep. John Kline (R-MN), Senior Republican Member Worker safety and health are among the most fundamental concerns of every employer in this country. No worker wants to risk illness or injury on the job – and no employer wants that risk either. Recognizing that different states have different workplace needs, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act allows states to crea... Read more »
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 »
Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the top Republican on the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, today joined colleagues to warn against harmful benefit cuts and federal intrusion into seniors’ health care decisions that would result from a government takeover of the nation’s health care system. With Democrats proposing hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to the Medicare program, Kline cautioned th... Read more »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Call it “Attack of the EFCA Clones.” Like a flying saucer in a science fiction movie, the Employee Free Choice Act has been hovering over the Capitol for months. Thanks to bipartisan opposition, though, it hasn’t attacked the U.S. economy yet. But measures similar to EFCA are staging economic assaults that are equally troubling. Take federal Project Labor Agreements. Popular among EFCA backers, th... Read more »
Rep. John Kline (R-MN), the top Republican on the U.S. House Education and Labor Committee, today cautioned that small businesses and their workers will be harmed by health care proposals that raise taxes and impose costly federal mandates. Kline reacted to today’s announcement from the Obama Administration regarding new proposals designed to benefit small businesses, arguing that expanding access... Read more »
It seems there’s more than one way to meddle with organizing elections at the expense of workers. While most of Capitol Hill’s attention has been on the misleadingly named Employee Free Choice Act – with its ability to kill jobs, set aside the secret ballot, and crush small businesses – there’s another attempt to rig organizing elections underway in a little-known federal agency. The Wall Street J... Read more »
