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Barack Obama  |
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Rob Kailey is a working schmuck with no ties or affiliations to any governmental or political organizations, save those of sympathy.
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card check
Thu Jan 15, 2009 at 17:23:23 PM MST
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Read Yglesias. It's no surprise that there would be a correlation between employee choice, unionization, economic freedom, and prosperity. When workers are free to join unions, they tend to in large numbers. Unionized industries give workers the power to solve their disputes without resorting to policy changes. That means disputes get sorted out through contract negotiations instead of Congressional fights.
Bam, worker freedom->unionization->economic freedom->prosperity. Even better, that prosperity is shared because you have a middle class that can bargain for its fair share.
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Thu Dec 04, 2008 at 19:39:07 PM MST
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So, the province of Ontario apparently had card check legislation in place for fifty years and there's no record of any employer in the entire province ever complaining of unions intimidating workers into signing up for the union against their will.
Presumably that means that only workers who supported the unions were ever intimidated by union organizers. Or something. Eh?
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Mon Nov 17, 2008 at 14:03:18 PM MST
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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.
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Fri Mar 23, 2007 at 11:07:25 AM MST
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I'll generally try to keep the Presidential politics discussion to a minimum here, but this is too baffling to not note. Mark Schmitt, whose regular columns for The American Prospect are a noteworthy highlight of a broadly impressive rag, looks at Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's pollster and one of her top advisors. What he finds is a bit unnerving for anyone who supports American workers:And, finally, he is the "Worldwide President and CEO" of Burson-Marsteller, the fifth largest public relations firm in the world. That's a big title, and it seems like it would be a big job. Prowl around the Burson-Marsteller web site, and you'll see that it's a company that does lots of things.
One that might be of interest to liberals thinking about whether to support Clinton is "Labor Relations." In this section, Senator Clinton's top advisor's company says, "Companies cannot be caught unprepared by Organized Labor's coordinated campaigns whether they are in conjunction with organizing or contract negotiating ... That is why we have developed a comprehensive communications approach for clients when they face any type of labor situation." If you follow the links provided in Schmitt's piece, it actually is as bad as it looks. Penn's firm runs union busting operations.
Look, there's a place in American politics for union-busting, toe-the-corporate-line types. Historically, it's been called the Republican Party.
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Mon Feb 12, 2007 at 13:52:37 PM MST
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The Montana Chamber of Commerce is, unsurprisingly, attacking the notion of card check for unionization. They claim that card check opens the door to worker intimidation.
They should either drop the talking points or look into the facts: even in card check campaigns, workers are more subject to intimidation from their employers than from union organizers. As an example of what happens when a union campaign starts, Ezra Klein mentions the following data: Research shows that, when threatened with a union, 30% of employers fire pro-union workers, 49% threaten to close down, 51% use bribery or favoritism to tilt the election, and 82% hire unionbusting consultants.
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