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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (25641)	2/27/2007 2:49:35 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 35834

Chiseling away at democracy By John Kline Townhall.com Columnist Monday, February 26, 2007 The right to a secret ballot is the cornerstone of our democracy. For centuries, Americans – regardless of their race, creed, or gender – have fought for the right to vote…and the right to keep that vote to themselves. Now, just months after the new Democrat majority was elected in 435 separate, private ballot elections, it is preparing to strip men and women of their right to a private ballot in the workplace. What could be more undemocratic than that? This week, House Democrat leaders will bring up for debate legislation – the cleverly-entitled Employee Free Choice Act – that would kill private voting rights in union organizing elections and make employees’ votes public through what’s known as a “card check.” In card check campaigns, union bosses gather authorization cards purportedly signed by workers expressing their desire for a union to represent them – a process that notoriously leaves workers open to coercion, pressure, and outright intimidation. Such an instance of intimidation was highlighted in testimony provided earlier this month to a U.S. House labor subcommittee by Karen M. (to protect her identity, she chose not to provide her full last name), an employee who described tactics used in a card check campaign at her company in Oregon. During that card check drive, she told us that she and her colleagues were “subjected to badgering and immense peer pressure” and that she “exercised [her] free choice not to be in the union and [her] work life became miserable because of it.” Frankly, hers is one of the tamer stories we’ve heard. What’s particularly amazing, however, is that even sponsors of the card check bill admit the process is inherently prone to just the type of intimidation Karen described in her testimony. Writing to Mexican – yes, Mexican – officials in August 2001 in advance of an election between two competing labor unions in that country, 16 House Democrats – 11 of whom remain in the House and sponsor the card check bill – plainly stated, “We feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they may otherwise not choose.” That’s right. Not only do card check supporters seem to be supporting rights for Mexican workers that they aren’t even willing to protect for their own constituents, but they also have admitted that the same card check process they romanticize as a better alternative to the secret ballot is, in fact, flawed. So, let’s be clear. No matter where they’re conducted – the United States, Mexico, or anywhere else – and regardless of the circumstances – whether between two unions or in a single union recognition campaign – the fact remains that, in the best case, card check campaigns expose a worker’s private vote for everyone to see…and, in the worst case, they leave workers wide open to intimidation, coercion, and threats. So, if it’s not to protect workers, what is the real reason for the card check bill? Two words: desperation and power. Union membership is in sharp decline – down to 12 percent nationwide and seven percent in the private sector. And that trend isn’t showing any signs of reversing. That is, unless something dramatic occurs. And that’s where the so-called Employee Free Choice Act comes into play. It gives Big Labor and the Democrats they helped elect one last, best shot at reversing their flagging fortunes. Will it work? Probably not this time around. The bill is likely to stall in the Senate, and President Bush already has pledged a veto should it get that far. But is it a wake-up call for all of us? Absolutely. House Democrats this week are poised to begin chiseling away at democracy in the workplace, and if they’re willing to do something so brash this early in the new Congress, you can’t help but ask, “what’s next?” Congressman John Kline was elected to represent Minnesota’s Second Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2002, and was re-elected to a second term in 2004. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (25641)	3/5/2007 10:07:10 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Labor's Payoff It's a lot less than they were hoping for. by Whitney Blake The Weekly Standard 03/03/2007 ORGANIZED LABOR may want to celebrate the House vote March 1 that one newspaper headline touted as a "payoff" for the $56.7 million that unions contributed to Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections. The passage of H.R. 800, the "Employee Free Choice Act," is indeed a milestone for big labor, which watched it go down in defeat in the 108th and 109th Congresses. But it will have to be a quick victory dance; the bill will not pass in the Senate by a long shot. Speaking before the Conservative Political Action Committee on Thursday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed: "I can assure you that it will meet a different fate when it gets to the Senate." And this isn't the only recent example of a DOA labor bill: H.R.1, the Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007 passed on January 9, included a little-noticed provision that wasn't one of the 9/11 Commission recommendations: a requirement that the Transportation Security Administration engage in collective bargaining with government unions whose members include airport security screeners. Sen. Harry Reid introduced the Senate version of the bill, the Improving America's Security Act of 2007, in early January, but the White House signaled it would veto this measure, and last Tuesday, 36 Republicans, led by Sen. Jim DeMint, signed a letter backing President Bush's veto, guaranteeing enough support to thwart a veto override. The Employee Free Choice Act will meet its demise in the Senate for good reason. Senate Republicans understand the true implications of the EFCA, which is not simply about protecting workers' rights to organize, as Rep. George Miller, the bill's sponsor, states. The bill, which passed the house by a vote of 241-185, includes three main parts: card-check legislation, binding arbitration, and increased regulation and oversight of employers. A card-check system is a means of allowing a company to unionize if the employees sign cards authorizing a union to represent their interests. Previously, this system was part of the 1935 Wagner Act (or National Labor Relations Act). Congress amended it with the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which extended the restriction of "unfair labor practices" to unions as well as employers, and set up the present system of secret-ballot elections for unionization votes. Under the EFCA, the independent National Labor Relations Board (which was established under the Wagner Act), must recognize a union if 51 percent of employees at a given job site sign authorization cards. One of the main quibbles over the legislation language is whether employees are in fact, as the Democrats insist, still free to choose a secret-ballot election. Technically, the EFCA does not abolish the secret ballot per se. Currently, if a union collects signed cards from 30 percent of employees at a site, it can request a secret ballot election. With the EFCA, the union theoretically can still request a secret-ballot election with signed cards from 51 percent of workers, but has no incentive to do so. (The only case in which unions argue for secret ballot elections is during a union decertification effort.) So, the EFCA does, in a de facto sense, render the secret-ballot system meaningless. A press release from the House Education and Labor Committee sums it up perfectly: "If a majority of workers in a workplace sign cards authorizing a union, then the workers would get a union." While the card-check portion of the EFCA has received the most attention, binding arbitration cannot be overlooked. This mandates that the federal government set binding contract terms, which will be effective for a minimum of two years, on employees and employers if the bargaining period exceeds 120 days (which is not uncommon). Employees do not have a vote over the terms; Jason Straczewski of the National Association of Manufacturers considers this "borderline unconstitutional." What's also not widely publicized is the actions under the EFCA that fall under intimidation and coercion by employers. As Lawrence Lindsey points out in a February 2 Wall Street Journal piece, employers can be fined up to $20,000 for implementing pay raises, increased benefits, and improvements in working conditions during the period in which unions are attempting to organize workers. Incidentally, the EFCA doesn't establish stricter penalties for unions that engage in intimidation and coercion tactics. Thirteen Republicans voted in favor of the EFCA, while just two Democrats switched party lines. One of the two, Congressman Dan Boren of Oklahoma, decided the bill was "just bad policy" after consulting with his state's labor leaders, according to his office. On the Senate side, the bill has no chance of passage, and interestingly enough, Arlen Specter, who co-sponsored similar EFCA legislation in the 108th and 109th Congresses, has not taken a position as of yet. His office said he was "still reviewing" the issue, but wouldn't explain why his view is now uncertain. Surprisingly, the editorial boards of several major newspapers have come down of the side of Republicans. Even the LA Times, by no means a Republican loyalist, stated "Supporters of unionization shouldn't be able to pressure unwilling or hesitant employees you don't have to be a critic of unions to recognize that the card-check system invites such abuses." The TSA provision of the 9/11 Commission recommendations bill was looming in the shadow of the EFCA bill last week, but it is nonetheless a consequential matter. The measure does not prevent airport security screeners from joining a union, but it does prohibit collective bargaining. Unions are still able to petition on behalf of workers for grievances, workers' compensation claims, discrimination claims, and safety complaints. Republicans contend that this is a matter of national security; Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff noted on Wednesday: "We can't negotiate over terms and conditions of work that goes to the heart of our ability to move rapidly in order to deal with the threats that are emerging." Republicans also point out that this action will give unions an estimated $17 million per year in new dues, based on the number of TSA workers, and that airport security workers aren't particularly dissatisfied with their working conditions--turnover at the TSA in FY 2006 was even lower than the private transportation-utilities sector (a 16.5 percent attrition rate compared with a 19.6 percent rate). On Thursday, Jim DeMint proposed an amendment that would remove this portion of the bill. Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill countered with a compromise amendment Thursday evening that would still implement collective bargaining, but with a few exceptions: TSA workers can't strike or bargain for higher pay, "classified or sensitive intelligence information" has to remain private during grievances, and the under secretary has complete control during "emergencies, newly imminent threats, or intelligence indicating a newly imminent emergency risk." However, when questioned on the House floor by DeMint for clarification of the last exception, McCaskill said, "I do not believe that declaring that we have a problem with terrorism worldwide that is a status quo day in and day out would be considered a day-to-day emergency." She considered it "specious reasoning" to establish a different set of rights for airport security workers just because "of the fact that we have to be concerned about worldwide terror." Hurricane Katrina would be a more pertinent example, in her mind, which demonstrates the legal qualifications for an "emergency" or "imminent threat" would have to be determined by the courts, thus delaying the process even further. With just 12 percent of the labor force currently represented by unions, (compared with 20 percent in 1983), organized labor has seen its influence and revenue dwindle. A hope for a shot in the arm by a newly minted Congress will, to its dismay, stop short of a full-blown revival. Whitney Blake is an editorial assistant at THE WEEKLY STANDARD. weeklystandard.com

To: Sully- who wrote (25641)	3/5/2007 12:28:41 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Checkmate The Democratic Party's honeymoon is over. BY KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page Friday, March 2, 2007 For Big Labor, this week's "card check" victory marked the ultimate payoff for past Democratic election support. For House Democrats, it marked the end of the honeymoon. Democrats won in November in part by playing down their special interest patrons--unions, environmentalists, trial lawyers--and by playing up a new commitment to the moderate middle class. The big question was whether the party had the nerve to govern the way it campaigned, and card check was the first test. The answer? AFL-CIO chief John Sweeney isn't smiling for nothing. Up to now, Speaker Nancy Pelosi had kept her troops in line and her party's liberal wing in check. The vaunted first "100 hours" was run like a military operation, and revolved around a carefully chosen legislative agenda that would unify every faction in her party. It was small potatoes, but it worked, and it was a lesson in how Democrats can practice smart politics. The card check, in contrast, is a lesson in how the party's liberal base forces Democrats to back political losers. The legislation's only purpose is to give unions an unfair advantage in organizing, namely by eliminating the secret ballot in union elections and instead allowing thugs to openly bully workers into joining up. Americans understand and despise this, with polls showing 90% of the public thinks card check is a racket. Democrats therefore left themselves wide open for their first public drubbing. The card check gave Republicans a rare opening to beat the daylights out of the new majority, successfully accusing it of trashing democratic elections and shutting down free speech. It unified the business community, which put aside its disagreements on health care and immigration to instead team up to make the vote as painful as possible for Ms. Pelosi's moderate wing. Even the liberal press jumped ship. And all this, meanwhile, for a vote that was largely symbolic. President Bush has vowed that a card check law is dead on arrival. And that assumes the legislation could even make it through a Senate filibuster--which it can't. As low points go, this was the lowest the new majority has had so far. The issue for Ms. Pelosi is that this will undoubtedly not be the only low point. The card check is instead the first illustration of the biggest dilemma Democratic leaders will face over the next few years. Savvier party members understand the threat special interests pose to Democrats' ability to commune with more of America. Yet the party is completely dependent on those left-wing interest groups to finance and man their electoral victories. They want a return on their investment. For years now, unions have provided thousands of volunteers for get-out-the-vote efforts. More important, they've provided a huge purse to get Democrats elected. This time they handed over the money on condition that Democrats support what has become their biggest priority. This week they called in their chits. Many Democrats also see the card check as vital to their political survival. Union membership has been nose-diving for years. In 2006 it dropped to just 12% of workers. The reigning belief is that if Democrats don't do their part to reverse this decline, they'll see a huge source of manpower and cash for future elections disappear. The card check might be terrible politics, but it is the best shot they have to force more Americans into unions that will spend the dues to re-elect Democrats. Whatever the motivation, enough Democrats were willing to take a hit if it meant getting card check through. Not that they didn't attempt to lessen the sting. One reason this was the first major domestic legislation up for a vote was that Democrats were anxious to get it out of the way quickly, and put space between it and next year's election. House insiders were this week referring to that strategy as the "Rip Off the Band-Aid" approach: This is gonna hurt, so do it fast. It also explains the pains House Labor and Education Committee Chairman George Miller took to put the bill through as quietly as possible. The card check will be the biggest change in labor law in decades, yet Mr. Miller allowed but a single hearing and markup on the issue. That hearing was held in the middle of the House's very public Iraq debate, the better to avoid any notice. The issue exploded nonetheless, and it was the party's moderate wing that got caught in the crossfire. Big Labor, to its credit, had approached the card check with a lot more political savvy than is usually the case. In particular, it started approaching Democratic moderates several years ago, demanding they co-sponsor a card check bill. While many in the Blue Dog wing wouldn't normally agree to such an anti-business measure, they saw this as a useful opportunity to score some union points. After all, Republicans weren't about to bring up the legislation. The problem came when Democrats won, and they had to stand behind their previous support. The unions' other big coup was to get to this year's Democratic freshmen early in the electoral game. Labor explained that any union support they received in their tight races in GOP-leaning districts would be entirely conditioned on their later vote for card check. Most of them signed up for this devil's bargain, since, as one Democratic aide admitted: "We didn't have a choice." The business community this week made sure that those Democratic moderates felt the burn. The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace--a group of more than 300 business outfits against the card check--earlier this week laid out a six-figure radio buy for just three House districts, targeting North Carolina's Heath Shuler, Florida's Tim Mahoney and Kansas's Nancy Boyda. All three ran as conservative Democrats, and have only tenuous grips on their seats. The Chamber of Commerce spent another $400,000 on radio ads targeting 51 Republicans and Democrats who are also vulnerable next year. The ads had an effect. Card-check supporters had been hoping to get as many as 290 votes; instead they mustered just 241. Ms. Pelosi might remember that she only won last year's election because of the success of these moderate candidates. They were the ones who benefited most from Democrats' new promises to focus on "middle class" America. And it is the Democratic Party as a whole that will suffer if those promises aren't kept. Ms. Strassel is a member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board, based in Washington. Her column appears Fridays. opinionjournal.com