Contact Sen Harkin @ 202- 224-3254 Tell Him To Put The Employee Free Choice Act On The Floor As Is So We Can See Which Democrats are Selling Us Out Once Again!
Labor law reform must ensure that workers who want to join a union are able to do so without facing endless delays from corporations seeking to deny them a voice in the workplace. Companies currently use stall tactics to prevent workers from getting a contract. In fact, one year after a successful union election, 52 percent of workers’ unions still do not have a contract. Arbitration will give companies an incentive to negotiate in good faith and ensure that workers who have chosen to join a union actually get a contract. Even Big Business has agreed that arbitration is an efficient way to settle disputes. Clearly, their position is hypocritical and motivated by their desire to maintain a status quo in which corporations make millions while middle class families struggle.
Companies currently use stall tactics to prevent workers from getting a contract. Labor law reform must ensure that workers who want to join a union are able to do so without facing endless delays and stall tactics from companies seeking to deny them a voice in the workplace.
One year after a successful union election, 52 percent of employers deny their workers a contract. According to Cornell University researcher Kate Bronfenbrenner, 52 percent of workplaces had no collective bargaining agreement one year after a successful union election. Two years after an election, 37 percent of workers’ unions still had no labor agreement.1
The Employee Free Choice Act would give both workers and companies the right to request mediation from an outside source if they cannot reach a contract. This will help end the delays that workers currently face and ensure negotiations will be completed in a timely manner.
Arbitration works to encourage voluntary settlement of contract negotiations. Experience in the public sector shows that only a small minority of negotiations end up requiring an arbitration decision, in most cases fewer than 10 percent. In half of the states and the District of Columbia, public sector employees have the right to resolve collective bargaining conflicts through arbitration, and yet the vast majority of these contracts are still settled voluntarily rather than through arbitration.2
Businesses are opposed to the arbitration provision and the Employee Free Choice Act overall because they want to maintain the status quo in which CEOs make millions while workers struggle to pay their mortgages and find affordable health care for their families.
Top opponent of labor law reform admitted CEOs do not want to give up control. Former Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott said of the Employee Free Choice Act, “We like driving the car and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.”3
Big Business is hypocritical in its opposition to arbitration, a tool that companies routinely use to resolve disputes with consumers and workers.
Business praises arbitration as efficient and effective. In May 2008, more than a dozen business trade groups wrote a letter to Congress stating, “Arbitration is an efficient, effective, and less expensive means of resolving disputes for consumers, employers, investors, employees and franchisees, in addition to the many businesses that use the same system to resolve business disputes.” The Washington Post reported in 2006, “Over the past decade, the arbitration clause has become increasingly common in almost every consumer contract, whether it's for a credit card, telephone service, pesticide treatment or home construction…”4
1. Kate Bronfenbrenner, No Holds Barred: The Intensification of Employer Opposition to Organizing, May 2009
2. American Rights at Work, “Low Rates of Arbitration Use in the Public Sector,” 2009 3. The Wall Street Journal, Opinion, 11/18/08
4. The New York Times, 10/6/08; The Washington Post, 4/17/06
TAGS: Arbitration, American Rights at Work, EFCA, Employee Free Choice Act, Employee Free Choice, Labor Law Reform, Kate Bronfenbrenner, No Holds Barred. Unions, Union Blogs, AFL-CIO
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"Big banks and greedy corporations got our country into this mess," "Now they want to fire or harass employees who want to join a union." Senators Lincoln, Webb, Specter, Vitter, Pryor Either You Stand with Working People, or YOU stand with Greedy CEOs on The Employee Free Choice Act EFCA. Which Is It?
TAGS: EFCA Employee Free Choice Act, Employee Free Choice, Mark Pryor , Blanche Lincoln , Jim Webb , Arlen Specter ,David Vitter , Senator Mark Pryor , Senator Blanche Lincoln , Senator Jim Webb, Senator Arlen Specter , Senator David Vitter
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Posted by Josh Drobnyk at 11:18:43 AM on June 6, 2009 Sen. Arlen Specter, addressing a crowd of union activists outside of the Democratic Committee meeting in Pittsburgh on Saturday, urged them to look at the breadth of his job-producing past and votes alongside labor when considering who they'll back for Senate in 2010.
But with the crowd of a couple hundred solely focused on the Employee Free Choice Act, Specter pleaded with some more hostile activists that they'll be happy with his vote on the union organizing bill.
"I understand," Specter said after one member of the crowd shouted "You want my vote, I want your vote."
"I believe you'll be satisfied with my vote on this issue," Specter said.
Specter's appeal came during a break in his first in-person outreach to the statewide Democratic Party since he jumped from the Republican ship in late April.
He wasn't shy in trying to take credit for the $787 billion stimulus bill that Congress passed earlier this year with support from only three Republicans, including Specter. Specter said he was "largely responsible" for the measure and that it would "bring thousands of jobs to people in Pennsylvania and across America."
That all takes a back seat to the Employee Free Choice Act -- or "card check" -- for union activists, and with aspects of the original measure apparently dead, Specter may have a tough time winning over some in the labor movement, regardless of what he does on any future bill.
Specter, in an interview afterward, said he does not "see how we can have elections without the secret ballot," referring to a key provision in the original legislation.
"I expect some people to be insistent on the bill as it is currently written, but I think also that many people understand that legislation is the art of accommodation and compromise," he said.
U.S. Rep. Joe Sestak, Specter's potential challenger in the Senate contest, also addressed the crowd and was greeted warmly. He has pledged to support the Employee Free Choice Act.
DAILY KOS:
Specter addresses Employee Free Choice rally in PGH, supports free-ish choice? by ALinSF Share this on Twitter - Specter addresses Employee Free Choice rally in PGH, supports free-ish choice? Sat Jun 06, 2009 at 08:38:40 AM PDT I just got back from hearing Sen. Arlen Specter address the Employee Free Choice rally at the Westin in Pittsburgh, co-hosted by Democracy for America and several labor groups (SEIU, PA AFL-CIO and the Allegheny County Labor Council).
The PA State Democratic Committee Meeting was this weekend at the Westin, and Specter was there in his first official capacity with the party. Guessing that he felt the pressure, because we got word last night that Specter had decided to attend the rally.
Post speech, there are definitely mixed reactions from folks. Most of the state party members I talked with seem hopeful that Specter will come around to support Democratic issues. Union workers in the crowd seemed unsatisfied with what he said, as was I.
More below the fold.
ALinSF's diary :: :: Specter mentioned first contract in his laundry list of things he supports, but other than that all he really said was that he understands that he has to come to labor to get elected in PA. The high point came when someone in the crowd yelled "If you want my vote, I want yours."
He briefly mentioned that he's working with high-level labor folks and others in Congress to find a negotiation "that will satisfy you" but spent the bulk of his time on stage touting his support of the stimulus and how the stimulus equals jobs.
He ended by saying he is confident that the crowd will be happy with his vote on Employee Free Choice. Personally, I'm a little frustrated at his filibustering, but I wasn't really expecting much from him this morning.
Specter did say that he feels the pressure and the heat--and that's obvious, or he wouldn't have come.
Tags: Arlen Specter, Joe Sestak, Employee Free Choice, Labor, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Democracy for America, EFCA, Employee Free choice, Specter, EFCA Compromise, Union Blogs, Unions
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History
In 1949, the NLRB's Joy Silk Doctrine established that "an employer could lawfully refuse to bargain with a union claiming representative status through possession of authorization cards only if he had a 'good faith doubt' as to the union's majority status.This policy was changed in 1966 with the ruling in Aaron Brothers, where "the Board made it clear that it had shifted the burden to the General Counsel to show bad faith and that an employer 'will not be held to have violated his bargaining obligation... simply because he refuses to rely upon cards. 'If passed, the proposed Employee Free Choice Act would return the NLRB policy to the Joy Silk Doctrine and allow employer challenges to card check elections only when illegal coercion or fraud is charged.
'Violations of workers' rights cannot go unchallenged.'
What is the religious angle on this issue?
What is the religious angle on this issue? Most denominations in the United States eagerly affirm labor rights and express enthusiasm for the principle of free and fair collective bargaining. A review of the 2004 Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church shows that the support of Catholic social teaching for workers’ rights to organize is beyond dispute. From Pope Leo XIII to John Paul II, the right to form unions has been regarded as an indispensable element of economic justice.
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