No EFCA For Harry Reid?
Spotted this bit down in an item on McConnell reaching out to Lieberman.
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Lieberman met Thursday, yet Reid is waffling over whether to revoke Lieberman’s chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee and may instead hold a secret vote among Democratic members on whether to kick Lieberman out of the caucus.
If it's cynical for pols to get elected by secret ballot, then take it away from someone else as per below – isn't it even worse that they acknowledge its value by employing it in the Senate while preparing to do it?
Hundreds of candidates are running for federal office. When the polls close tonight, more than a hundred million Americans will have voted, all by secret ballots. But thanks to many of the very politicians running in today’s election, millions of today’s voters could lose their right to a secret ballot in the workplace tomorrow.
It’s cynical, even by political standards, for candidates to accept today’s private votes if they support the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — a one-bill union bailout for decades of corruption, ineptitude, and insulation from true competition.
Facing a decades-long decline in union membership, labor executives have crafted this law to strip working Americans of the right to cast a private ballot in workplace elections, as they decide whether to join a union. In place of an election, EFCA would impose a petition-like system already proven susceptible to coercion.
secret ballot sounds great, but only for fools who don’t follow the actual process of what it takes to organize a union.
Or for intelligent people who are well aware of how union “supporters” browbeat, threaten, and intimidate those who refuse to sign cards.
http://www.heritage.org/research/Labor/wm1366.cfm#_ftnref3
The process of petitioning for union representation is simple; get 30% of the workers in a proposed bargaining unit to submit cards, petition the NLRB for an election, and then hold the secret ballot election. The problem is that leftist union organizers are not able to make a convincing case, primarily because employees know and see what leftist union organizers and their heads are doing with the union dues they charge employees.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-union-sg,0,237951.storygallery
And if there’s one thing Republicans won’t stand for, it’s union coercion. Just ask the good folks at the Walmart meats department.
http://www.union-network.org/unisite/sectors/commerce/multinationals/wal-mart_union_busting_operator_named_for_threatening_workers.htm
What’s that you say? Walmart doesn’t have a meats department? Oh, that must be because of the aggressive union busting tactics employed by the organization that eventually resulted in the entire department getting shit-canned in retaliation for unionizing.
“– Wal-Mart workers made history in Jacksonville, voting in February, 2000 in favor of UFCW representation. But Wal-Mart has refused to accept the workers’ choice for a voice at work. The NLRB decided to prosecute Wal-Mart for refusing to bargain a union contract with the workers.
Following the workers’ vote, Wal-Mart announced plans to stock its stores with case-ready meat. The complaint also cites the retailer for failing to bargain with the UFCW over the plans to shift to case-ready meat. –”
Yup. Those damn oppressive and coercive unions. Why can’t Republicans protect our good hard working minimum wage employees from the tyranny of employee health care, living wages, safe workplaces, and responsible management? I’m sure with a new wave of unionizing under a union-friendly Obama administration we can expect a massive backlash by lower class working whites, right?
Moe asks: “Walmart doesn’t have a meats department?”
(1) Our local Walmart has a meats department.
(2) Union greed and abuse of power is the root cause of the decline of the big American auto companies.
(3) Very good catch, Dan.
In fairness, I should have noted:
(4) Mangagement gets the kind of unions it deserves.
“Walmart doesn’t have a meats department? Oh, that must be because of the aggressive union busting tactics employed by the organization that eventually resulted in the entire department getting shit-canned in retaliation for unionizing.”
Even if this were true and not an urban legend (you can still buy meat at Wal-Mart), what you call “retaliation for unionizing”, I call “pulling up stakes when labor costs make the venture unprofitable.”
I fully support anybody who wishes to voluntarily organize and bargain collectively for salaries and benefits, but just keep in mind that for certain kinds of work, there’s only so high of a price that the market will bear. Puff up employee costs above that mark, and you create unemployment. It’s not politics, it’s very basic math.
I’m not a supporter of Card Check, but it is possible for Wal-mart to still have meat for sale, since the alternative to dealing with the union is supposedly selling case-ready meat.
Of course, I for one do not consider it reprehensible for Wal-mart to choose the cheaper alternative between butchering in house and selling case-ready meat, and I consider it quite reasonable for that decision to change if the butchers unionize. The auto industry teaches us that we must consider the long-term costs of the union, not just the hourly cost of the first contract.
-dk
How on earth is a political election remotely comparable to a union vote?
Politicians cannot fire their constituents…
“Politicians cannot fire their constituents…”
No, but they sure can tax us into submission.
Not to mention legislate us into submission or use eminent domain to rid us from the neighborhood.