| Update -- Jon Bennion responds and notes that I hadn't linked to his original posts. That was an honest oversight. The main substantive post of his is here. Also -- a correction below.
Original Post: In a clear sign that the corporate community is sweating bullets, Jon Bennion of the Montana Chamber has been spending a lot of time beating up on the Employee Free Choice Act, a pro-union measure that would make starting a union easier for workers.
If Bennion's writing so far is any indication, it is a safe bet that the national Chamber (which, it is worth pointing out, is a different entity than the Montana Chamber) will be targeting Max Baucus and Jon Tester on this issue, even though both of our Senators are co-sponsors on the measure.
There's good reasons to make joining a union easier. By any account, worker intimidation by management during unionization drives is rampant today. The current law is toothless against worker intimidation (funny how the Chamber isn't too at all concerned about protecting workers from intimidation by management). In fact, one former Bush Administration official an employer in a frank Q-and-A summed up his opposition to card check by saying, "[Corporations] have no chance to retaliate" against workers trying to organize. Retaliation, of course, is already "illegal," but the laws are so meaningless that Labor Department officials talk about it as though it is legal (the equivalent of ONDCP opposing a law because it would give pot smokers no chance to light up in the privacy in their homes).
The bottom line, though, is that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and its card check provisions that will make it easier for workers who want to form unions to do so will also be good for our economy. Why? One of the biggest problems with our current economy is that it is way too top heavy and focused on playing money games with meaningless paper. For most American jobs, real wages have been in decline. A growing and active labor movement will restore some sanity to the wealth disparities in this country. Even better -- it will do so through the power of a contract and negotiations between invested individuals rather than through forced intervention by the government.
Both Max Baucus and Jon Tester are co-sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act. And while it will no doubt be a tough uphill climb to get the bill passed (the Chamber is clearly going to be pulling out all the stops), any workers who want to be paid what they are worth and any one who wants a stronger economy for all Americans should support its passage. |
