Card Check RIP?
| Fri Jul. 17, 2009 7:19 AM PDT
The New York Times reports that Democrats seem to be giving up on card check, the part of the Employee Free Choice Act that would allow unions to be certified if a majority of workers sign a card attesting to their desire to join. The Times explains "moderate" Democrats' opposition to the provision:
Several moderate Democrats, including Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, have voiced opposition to card check, convinced that elections were a fairer way for workers to unionize. They were swayed partly by business’s vigorous campaign, arguing that card check would remove confidentiality from unionization drives and enable union organizers to bully workers into signing union cards.
The Times could have better informed its readers by exploring how much money "moderate" Democrats like Blanche Lincoln received from anti-union forces, and how much money pro-card check Democrats received from unions. For example, Sen. Tom Harkin, who introduced EFCA in the Senate, has received $1.7 million from the labor sector—more than any other senator—since 1989. Sen. Lincoln, for her part, has received $5.5 million from business PACs over the course of her career. If the Times didn't want to get into the purchase prices of individual senators, something like this paragraph, via OpenSecrets, would have done just fine:
Members of Congress who voted in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act in 2007, when the bill wasn't passed, had collected 10 times more on average from union PACs during their careers ($862,065) than those who didn't ($86,538), and those who opposed the bill had collected more on average from business PACs ($2.5 million), than those who supported the legislation ($1.7 million).
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Comments
Wow, discussing the price
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 9:34 AM PDT.
Wow, discussing the price tags of the various senators. That's how you defend card check? You whine that some senators are more expensive than others?
How about defending card check?
I can't. I think it was not needed and exceedingly dumb politically to come out and be against a secret ballot. I think that what happened, it was taken out and instead measures to shorten election cycles and prevent pressure was a much better solution.
But yeah, go ahead, both senators whored themselves out but Blanche was a bigger one.
What I understand about the
Submitted by zqahtt (not verified) on Fri Jul. 17, 2009 12:27 PM PDT.
What I understand about the idea is that it doesn't take away the secret ballot if that's the way the participants want to do it.I do find it interesting that opponents keep using the point of union organizers bullying people into joining a union, which if done would be annoying at most, as opposed to the employers firing people for wanting to join a union, which would have a much bigger impact on someones life.The difference in leverage isn't even close.
the cowardly lion
Submitted by bojangles (not verified) on Sun Jul. 19, 2009 7:38 AM PDT.
Anybody else out there wondering what is wrong with these gutless dems. Don't they realize that the corporations have way too much power Thanks to Ronald Reagan? Any....and I repeat....ANY bill that helps undue the damage that Reagan has done to the middle class is a must vote for any democrat if he want to get the workers vote. And the last time I checked most of us work for a living. We need to harness some of the power that the corporations have and unions could help. We need to reverse corparate priorities.
It should be #1) Social #2) stockholders........not the other way around.
Teddy Roosevelt got rid of robber barons. Not only because they where setting prices but also because the bigger the corporation got the more power over the government they would have.
