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WASHINGTON — Another big day for the union-backed card-check bill as three massive retailers announced support for an alternative that is receiving mixed reviews this morning on the Hill.
Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods unveiled the proposal over the weekend, which some hope could break the gridlock in Congress over card check. The card check bill would make it easier to form unions. It may not have support needed to pass the Senate.
Yet the compromise is being rejected by both labor and business-affiliated groups.
The Hill’s two top proponents of card check, Democrats Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Rep. George Miller of California, issued a joint statement Sunday calling the proposal “unacceptable.”
“It was written by CEOs for CEOs. It is not a serious attempt at labor law reform,” wrote the lawmakers, who are both chairmen of congressional labor committees in the House and Senate.
Those fighting card check were equally disinterested in a compromise.
Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work, said he believes the card check bill is already on its way to defeat in Congress, and this new effort “may well lead to the bill’s passage.”
We’ll have more details on the proposal itself, but you can read some of the early reports here and here.
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are holding a policy committee hearing today on the card check bill, with its chief opponents on the hill, including Nevada Sen. John Ensign.
Not to be outdone, card check supporters at American Rights at Work are convening a briefing with economists discussing the bills benefits for small business.
The compromise seems reasonable from what little information was presented, especially having a time-limit on when elections must be held. It sounds like the equal access clause needs more work, but the idea is good.
I think card-check itself is a terrible idea, and the binding arbitration is just as bad. If a union isn't strong enough to get a contract then so be it, that's free enterprise at work. If a union can't get a company to meet it's demands by going on strike, it indicates that labor condistions probably aren't as bad as the union makes them out to be.
Why do unions fear a secret ballot and information from the company about why they don't want a union?
This may be as close as "fair" as it gets. The reason there is a middle class is for the unions. Know your history.
Employee Free Choice Act Compromise No Compromise at All
Monday Mar 23rd, 2009 4:13 PM
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/03...
Yesterday Costco Wholesale Corp., Starbucks Corp. and Whole Foods Market Inc. offered an alternative to the union-backed "card-check" legislation that U.S. business groups are spending millions of dollars to defeat. The proposal is being presented through Lanny Davis, former special counsel to President Clinton.
Inside sources have revealed to us some key problems with the proposal include:
The proposal eliminates workers' ability to choose majority sign-up, the one method for organizing proven to reduce coercion and pressure from all sides on workers. Instead, the proposal would force all workers through the broken, corporate-dominated NLRB system.
The proposal rejects first contract arbitration -- a tried and proven method for ensuring good faith bargaining and one of the core elements of the Employee Free Choice Act. Under this proposal, employers would continue to have the union-busting power to drag out bargaining indefinitely and keep employees from gaining the kind of enforceable contracts that CEOs always give themselves. First contract arbitration provides the necessary incentive for the parties to reach agreement on their own terms.
Rather than respecting employees' choice, the proposal gives CEOs the power to initiate drives to eliminate unions. Current law forbids corporate-initiated decertification campaigns, for good reason. Instead of bargaining a contract in good faith, employers would be initiating drives to get rid of the workers' chosen representative. Organizing a union or getting rid of a union should be the workers' choice, not the CEO's.
Rather than offering a level playing field, the proposal preserves CEOs' ability to force employees to attend one-on-one meetings with supervisors or mandatory mass anti-union meetings at work. We do not tolerate such undemocratic, coercive behavior in federal elections. Yet, while forcing employees to go through the NLRB election process, the proposal would preserve this coercive aspect of corporate-dominated NLRB elections.
The proposal does not offer pro-union workers or union organizers the same access that employers have to workers. In fact, the proposal does not improve access to workers one iota. According to the proposal, unions and management would be "permitt[ed] each to make presentations to employees at a neutral location concerning the issue of whether to form a union." Nothing in current law forbids such presentations at a neutral location. The problem is that the one place workers convene everyday, the workplace, is off-limits to union organizers and completely controlled and monopolized by management. While management has no restrictions on campaigning at work, both the union and workers are severely restricted.
www.TheTruthAboutEFCA.Org
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/