NLRB Now Going to Court to Defeat Secret Ballots

As reported in this NYT article, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is threatening to sue four states that recently passed ballot measures requiring secret ballot votes by workforces when deciding to unionize. Raising the federal agency's activism to new heights, there can be no doubt to the intent of the NLRB to completely railroad overwhelming public sentiment in their efforts to force unions down every employers throat...even if the majority of those workforces aren't interested. Buckle up, 2011 is going to be a bumpy labor ride.

Sen. Harkin Says Card Check is Far from Dead

"To those who think it's dead, I say think again," said Harkin, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Hinting a potential "lame duck" vote on the Employee Free Choice Act, parts of it, or something similar, Senator Harkin was emphatic that EFCA or "Card Check" was still very much alive as reported in this article by The Hill.

Never a dull moment...

NLRB Evens Out with Latest Confirmations

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rounded out its seats after finally receiving Senate confirmations of Brian Hayes and Mark Pearce. More notably as outlined in this Chamber post, these latest confirmations provides much-needed balance for a Board that became extremely activist after Craig Becker's temporary confirmation earlier this year.

New Labor Regs Provide EFCA Wake-Up Call

The National Mediation Board is expected to release new final regulations designed to essentially make it easier for railroad and airline workers to unionize. The U.S. Chamber has extensive commentary on these new rules which should remind all employers that the fight to stop the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is far from over. This brief video helps to explain why HARDI will once again call for a blockage of any legislation remotely like the EFCA during our 2010 Congressional Fly-In next week.

**Issue Update** Obama Appoints 15, Including Becker, During Recess

Despite strong opposition, President Obama proceeded yesterday with 15 recess appointments, including the highly controversial and twice defeated appointment of labor activist, Craig Becker, to the National Labor Relations Board. In addition to Becker, the President also appointed Mark Pearce, a labor-side attorney, but did not appoint a lone Republican nominee, Brian Hayes, or any other candidates to join the NLRB. Prospects for increasing labor-friendly regulatory changes to labor relations law now grows dramatically, though it is important to note that without Senate confirmation, recess appoints will expire in Jan. 2011.

March 28 Post: Will the President Really Appoint Craig Becker During the Recess?

The US Chamber's two most recent posts addresses the question outlining the importance of appointing a labor activist like Becker to one of the Administration's biggest financial and political supporters: organized labor. This post outlines how a recess appoint of Becker would contradict previous statements made by then-Senator Obama, while this one goes into great detail showing exactly how important the Becker nomination and EFCA is to big labor.

It is important to note that it's been a major labor disappointment to have not yet passed EFCA, and labor took another big hit when the healthcare reconciliation package passed this week because it stripped the "construction carve-out" from the original Senate bill which would have made construction businesses with as few as five employees subject to the healthcare bill's employer mandates thereby providing a huge advantage to unions.

EFCA or By Any Other Means...

Thanks to a member for forwarding me the following quote:

“The Employee Free Choice Act has the support of a majority of the US Senate. But under the current rules in the Senate you need not a majority -- 50 votes-- but a super-majority of 60 votes to move legislation to where a vote to pass it can even take place. We are very close to the 60 votes we need. If we aren't able to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, we will work with President Obama and Vice President Biden and their appointees to the National Labor Relations Board to change the rules governing forming a union through administrative action.”

-Stewart Acuff, Chief of Staff, Utility Worker’s Union of America

**ALERT** Becker Nomination Defeated in Senate

This afternoon the Administration's second attempt to nominate union activist, Craig Becker, to the National Labor Relations Board was defeated in the Senate by a 52-33 vote (60 votes needed for cloture). Two Democrats (Sen. Ben Nelson-NE and Sen. Blanche Lincoln- AR) voted with Republicans to block the nomination (15 Senators didn't bother voting once the outcome was obvious). This is a major blow to organized labor and any other proponent of the Employee Free Choice Act. Congratulations to the HARDI members who sent nearly 100 letters to their Senators in just one day urging opposition to the biased nomination.

It Won't Snow in DC Forever so...

...anyone opposed to forced unionization, Card Check, or mandatory federal arbitration of labor contracts should take advantage of Washington's weather delay to urge Senate opposition to Craig Becker's nomination to the National Labor Relations Board.

EFCA May Drop "Card Check" Provision

Courtesy of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace:

September 22, 2009 News Highlights

Print Summary

Removal of card-check provision makes EFCA passage more likely
Business Management Daily
Jonathan Kane, Esq.
http://www.businessmanagementdaily.com/articles/20144/1/Removal-of-card-check-provision-makes-EFCA-passage-more-likely/Page1.html#
With news from Capitol Hill that the “card-check” provision has been dropped from the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), employers need to be concerned that passage of the controversial pro-union legislation is now more likely than ever.The “card-check” provision was always intended as a bargaining chip to be taken off the table as a concession. The provision would have required employers to recognize unions after a simple majority of workers signed cards, rather than after a secret-ballot election.Now that it has been stripped out to facilitate the 60 votes needed in the Senate to prevent a filibuster, a major stumbling block to enactment has been removed.

Blog Posts

Insider Interviews: NAACP Enters Second Century in Age of Obama
National Journal Blog
Emily Vaughan
http://insiderinterviews.nationaljournal.com/2009/09/naacp-enters.php
NJ: Immigration reform is extremely unpopular in the black community. If the issue comes up next year, would the NAACP work against a bill that would extend amnesty to people here?
Jealous: We're in full support of comprehensive immigration reform. Let me be very clear: We really need a broader conversation about comprehensive labor reform in this country. So the conversation about the Employee Free Choice Act, for example, needs to be part of the same conversation as the conversation about how working families are treated in this country regardless of status.

AFL-CIO Convention Delivers More EFCA and Project Labor Agreement News
TheTruthAboutPLAs.com
http://www.thetruthaboutplas.com/2009/09/22/afl-cio-convention-delivers-more-efca-and-project-labor-agreement-news/
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interviewed Brett McMahon of ABC member Miller & Long Concrete about EFCA and President Obama’s discriminatory and costly Executive Order 13502 in a wrap-up article about the quad-annual AFL-CIO convention, which was held this year in Pittsburgh (”AFL-CIO aims to bring young people into unions,” 9/20).

Trumka Demands Real Reforms on Wall Street, Across the Economy
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Seth Michaels
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/09/22/trumka-demands-real-reform-on-wall-street-across-the-economy/
Speaking on the Rachel Maddow Show last night, Trumka explained why we need to hold Obama and leaders in Congress to their promises and make sure they enforce real protections for consumers in the financial industry, because the current system has failed:
Today, Rachel, I talked to a woman in Atlanta, and she was making $1,162 a month on a fixed salary, and they gave her a $900 a month mortgage. That type of predatory lending should have been picked up by one of those agencies. It wasn’t.
Trumka said that union members across the country will watch carefully to make sure elected leaders are looking out for working people, not big banks and corporations: What we’re going to do is make sure that they live by that. We’ll educate our members, we’ll mobilize our members. I think our members will hold them accountable on Election Day.
Trumka also spoke with Maddow about health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.

Despite Intense Push, EFCA Still Faces Steep Climb

Here's the latest report from the Coalition for a Democratic Workforce, of which HARDI is a member:

CDW Members:

The last 10 days have, with Labor Day and the AFL-CIO’s convention in Pittsburgh (click here to see the CDW ad that ran in all the PGH newspapers yesterday, and was mentioned by Senator Specter during his speech to the convention), seen plenty of talk about EFCA; ranging from commitments to pass the original EFCA to the assertion that there are currently 60 votes in favor of moving forward with an alternative version of EFCA.

· Senator Tom Harkin, chairman of the Senate HELP Committee on September 10, according The Hill : “As of July, I can tell you this openly and I know the press is all here but we had worked out a pretty good agreement. Labor was at the table.” The Hill continued, that Harkin “said Thursday that he had the 60 Senate votes necessary in July to clear the card-check bill through the Senate.
o However, here is Senator Harkin on July 29, 2009: “I think we're 80 [percent] to 90 percent there.”

· Outgoing AFL-CIO President, John Sweeney, speculated to the New York Times that unions would have to accept an EFCA alternative that did not include card-check.
o According to the Las Vegas Sun last Friday, Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid told “a group of more than a thousand union members that ‘we have to do card check.’”

· Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis, in a speech at the AFL-CIO convention, stated that the White House would “make the strongest case possible” for passage of EFCA.
o Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA) told the same AFL-CIO convention that an alternative EFCA deal had been reached, saying “We have pounded out an Employees Choice bill which will meet labor’s objectives.”

That’s a fairly confusing narrative; Senator Harkin has 60 votes for EFCA, but he doesn’t; the AFL-CIO is ready to concede on card-check, but the Senate Majority Leader says it’s a “must have” item; and the Secretary of Labor fully endorses the passage of EFCA, but Senator Specter implies that a “deal” has been reached on a new version of the bill.

The reality is that Senator Specter, along with Senators Schumer and Brown, are no closer to reaching an agreement that nets 60 votes than they were in July. The continued grassroots efforts of CDW members during the August recess and into this month (when several groups are hosting D.C. fly-ins with their members companies) has kept EFCA in the same place it was 6 months ago……..incapable of getting 60 votes in the Senate.

So, please keep up the good work so that we can continue to win this crucial legislative battle.

EFCA Opposition August Recess Toolkit Now Available

The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, of which HARDI is a member, has prepared and made available a toolkit to help individual businesses tell their representatives why the "Employee Free Choice Act" or "Card Check" is a bad idea for workers and employers alike. This toolkit makes it very easy for individuals to get their message across while their legislators are home during Congress' summer break.

A Pre-August Recess "Card Check" Surprise??

This post to the the US Chamber's blog provides some ominous quotes from majority aides indicating a potential strategy to sneak through an Employee Free Choice Act-like bill potentially before Congress adjourns for the rest of the summer.

Is the WSJ Reading Our Blog?

Today's WSJ Opinion column sounds eerily familiar, despite being infinitely better written. The message is the same as HARDI's July 17 Alert and blog post which is that you may never hear about the "Employee Free Choice Act" again, but beware of the "Choice for Free Employees Act" or "Freedom for Employee Choices Act" in the near future...

Rhetoric Gearing Back Up on Card Check

The original Employee Free Choice Act is proving politically toxic enough that "compromise" language may look very little like it, which this article from today's New York Times might indicate even waning support from organized labor. The big picture here is that employers can't go to sleep on key issues such as authorization card mandates, campaign timelines, and binding arbitration. A future bill may not sound or look at all like EFCA or "card check" but it could be just as problematic for employers and employees alike.

EFCA "Compromise" Update

This just in from the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace:

We wanted to make sure everyone had the latest on EFCA alternatives in the Senate.

See this Wall Street Journal story ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124243752071226041.html) that lays out to proposals from Senator Specter. These new versions of EFCA perfectly show the trap that is set by "compromise" discussions.

As the WSJ reports, Senator Specter is proposing the use of mail-in union authorization cards. The NLRB currently uses mail-in ballots in place of secret ballot elections held on the employer’s premises in rare circumstances where “eligible voters are scattered . . . over a wide geographic area” or are otherwise “not present at a common location at common times” – and only then after considering various other factors.

NLRB career staff have mentioned several problems with the mail-in ballots, including “the potential interference by any party in a mail ballot situation…” To top it off, statistics substantially lower participation rates by potential voters in mail-in ballots than in secret ballot elections.

If men were angels, this mail-in system would somehow protect an employee's right to make their decision in private. However, in reality, mail-in cards simply force the professional union organizers to bring along a stamped envelope when they present the cards to be signed. If they're real "nice," they could even offer to drop the envelope at the post office, too.

Senator Specter is also floating "last best offer" arbitration. While this differs somewhat from the original EFCA, binding arbitration still give a government bureaucrat the ability to impose a labor contract---wages, hours, work rules, pension, etc---on American entrepreneurs. Moreover, in choosing which offer is the most reasonable, the arbitrators will look to other unionized employers in the industry. For example, if you are an auto maker, your offer will be compared to Ford, GM and Chrysler’s contracts, not their nonunion competitors.

CDW members who have a presence in PA should contact Senator Specter to let him know that this version of EFCA is just as bad as the original.

Speaking of "Card Check"...

...you've got to see this remarkable exchange with Congressman Raul Grijalva's (AZ-7) legislative staff in which HARDI members in his district who oppose the Employee Free Choice Act are essentially called liars. Here is the email address of the Congressman's Chief of Staff in case any of those evil employers out there might want to send some more "deceptive propaganda".

Watch Out for Card Check Compromises

Yesterday the President agreed that there are not enough votes in the Senate to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, but there is room for compromise. To few people's surprise, Sen. Arlen Specter appears to be leading the charge for a compromise bill that will just partially disenfranchise workers and employers. Can't pass up this "told you so" moment.

Arguments in Support of EFCA are Misleading

Several HARDI member have received the following boilerplate response from their legislators who support the Employee Free Choice Act:

The Employee Free Choice Act proposes changes to the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 that would allow the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to certify a union when a majority of employees sign authorization cards designating the union as their representative. If instead the employees want to organize by holding an election, it is their choice, and an election will be held.

It is important that all workers and employers understand how misleading this argument is.

Facts: EFCA clearly states (emphasis for clarity): "If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bargaining representative and that no other individual or labor organization is currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative described in subsection (a)."

This legislation clearly and simply states: "the Board shall not direct an election."

Rhetoric from EFCA’s supporters claiming employees can still chose an election ignores the reality of union organizing campaigns. Professionally trained and compensated organizers collect and control the signed authorization cards. There is no incentive for these organizers to inform workers of the ability to organize via the secret ballot or practical method for employees to force the organizers to request an election. The reality is that once a majority has signed the cards, there will be no secret ballot election, and the union is recognized by the National Labor Relations Board. Major national newspapers—including the USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe and Washington Post—have seen through Big Labor’s rhetoric and concluded that EFCA would effectively eliminate the secret ballot election process in union organizing drives.

Beware of Sen. Specter's "Opposition" to Card Check

Yesterday many opponents to the Employee Free Choice Act hailed Pennsylania Senator Arlen Specter's announcement that he would not be supporting EFCA (S. 560) if brought to the floor this year. However, on his website the Senator posted along with the transcript of his announcement a list of recommended changes to the National Labor Relations Act.

With rumors of compromise language being shopped around the Hill by a few major retailers, this smells a lot like a set up for Senator Specter's support for a compromise "card check" bill that will just "kind of" strip workers of their right to a secret ballot when deciding to unionize AND whether to accept their labor agreements. It will be important now for Pennsylvanians to thank the Senator for opposing EFCA in its current form AND REMIND HIM THAT THERE IS NO ACCEPTABLE COMPROMIZE TO THIS ISSUE.

A Big Blow to Card Check

Thanks in large part to the intense pressure from members of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, which would include HARDI member companies, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) announced today that he would not support the latest attempt to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. Specter had voted for cloture when the bill was originally introduced in 2007. Senator Specter received the most letters from HARDI members than any other member of Congress over the last week.