EFCA in Danger

[amborin]

"......In 1989 and again in 1994, a clear majority of nurses at a Louisville, Ky., hospital signed cards saying they wanted a union. But each time a majority of the nurses later voted down the idea when it was put to a secret ballot.

Nurses who want a union plan to try again, and they had expected a Democratic president and Congress to retool labor laws to make it easier to win. Instead, in Louisville and around the country, organized labor may be facing a major setback in the most contentious fight over labor laws since the 1940s.

Right now, unions seem to lack the 60 votes needed to block a Senate filibuster against the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill that would give workers the right to have their union recognized as soon as a majority signs cards calling for a union. The change would make it easy to bypass secret-ballot elections, which are traditionally harder for unions to win.

snip

... In recent months, corporate interests have lobbied vigorously against “card check,” as the bill is known, because it would most likely enable unions to add millions of members and increase labor’s clout in Washington and at bargaining tables nationwide

..... Labor leaders say the nation’s laws have unfairly handicapped them. They say management has many advantages, including an ability to campaign against unions the whole workday, while union organizers are barred from company property.

Card check would be fairer, they argue, because workers could organize without the expensive, prolonged campaigns that precede secret-ballot elections in which management often presses workers to vote against the union and sometimes illegally fire pro-union workers.

snip

In the Louisville fight, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that the nurses had changed their minds about the union in 1994 mainly because management conducted an often illegal campaign against unionization.

An N.L.R.B. judge concluded that management had committed so many serious violations of the law — firing and demoting nurses, threatening to close the hospital if the union prevailed — that it made the possibility of a “free choice by the employees slight to nonexistent.”

snip

<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/business/21labor.html?_r=1&ref=business>

[QC]

1. All Democratic senators who fail to support EFCA should get primary challengers.

Every single one of them.

[TheCoxwain]

2. These corporations have a tighter hold on the reins of the Government than we thought

The democratic senators/congressmen opposing EFCA should be whipped.

[Laelth]

3. Leadership should make the Republicans filibuster.

A "threat" should not be enough.

:dem:

-Laelth

[TheCoxwain]

5. Hello .. Republicans arent the problem here .. Dems are backing out

[Laelth]

6. Di Fi and others, I know.

Still, I can't stand the "we must have 60 votes to pass anything in the Senate" argument, as displayed above. I was reacting to that.

:dem:

-Laelth

[amborin]

4. Take Action: AFL-CIO website to email congress:

<http://www.unionvoice.org/campaign/passefca_II>

[amborin]

7. here are some dems who are weasling out:

".....Nearly a quarter of the House Democratic freshman class has not signed on to co-sponsor the controversial card-check bill, despite being showered with campaign contributions by organized labor.

Many of these Democrats represent battleground districts, and their reluctance to support the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) reflects worries it would affect their reelection in 2010. Business groups staunchly opposed to the bill campaigned against supporters in 2008.

snip

The seven freshmen who did not sign their names to the bill represent some of the most competitive districts in the country.

Reps. Bobby Bright (D-Ala.), Walt Minnick (D-Idaho) and Parker Griffith (D-Ala.) all won with less than 52 percent of the vote. Reps. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.) and Tom Perriello (D-Va.) each required a recount to claim their seats. Only Reps. Glenn Nye (D-Va.) and Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.) won by comfortable margins.

snip

....Making matters more difficult, each of the seven members has taken thousands of dollars from labor groups and political action committees. Kirkpatrick leads the pack, with $221,000 in donations from labor, while Kratovil’s $183,000 comes in a close second.

All told, six of the seven who have yet to sign on to the bill have taken more than $100,000 from labor groups, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Only Perriello fell below the six-figure mark, taking $77,000 from labor groups.....

snip

<http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/freshman-democrats-walk-efca-tightrope-2009-03-11.html>