Claire McCaskill on This Week today- on EFCA

[proud2BlibKansan]

I am paraphrasing but she said we should have secret ballot elections when employees want to decertify a union. If unions put that in the EFCA, they would have a better job of passing it.

I thought Claire had a pretty decent pro-labor record. I know for sure that her campaign benefitted from labor's support cause I worked on her campaign.

This isn't a good sign at all. Damn.

[bluestateguy]

1. Many are making the mistake of thinking that this law would end secret ballots

That's not true. If a majority don't sign the card, then a secret ballot election can still take place. I support this law 100%, but honestly, I'm not sure that I would sign a card in my job because I'd be too worried about recriminations from management if the unionization drive failed. In a secret ballot, though, I'd vote to unionize.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. If 30% want a secret ballot, they get a secret ballot

That part gets left out of the talking points too often.

[pberq]

9. Recriminations from card check???

We ran a card check here in my Local, and the cards were never seen by management, nor should they, according to my understanding.

If management demands that the cards be counted, a neutral third party does the counting, and they are sworn to keep the information secret (other than the total number).

This is the way we were instructed by our national union, so am I missing something here?

[Earth Bound Misfit]

10. The signed cards or petitions are not made available to management.

They do not have any legal right to such information. Any Unionbuster would advise mgmt to "misplace" such cards/petition should they gain possession of any or all of them.

When a company embarks on a "union avoidance campaign" (hires a UNIONBUSTER) to "educate" their employees prior to a "secret" ballot Union election they use proven effective methods not only to persuade employees to vote no, but to gain a sense of each employee's opinion on the matter which in turn reveals how they are likely to vote. They will recruit "popular" employees & supervisors, assign each with a number of people in the voting unit and carefully record any information they can, often under the guise of "friendly conversation", and report it all back to the unionbuster. The unionbuster will employ "assistants" who have access to the workplace 24/7/365, often lurking in employee cafeterias, break rooms, outside the workplace...always watching, eavesdropping on conversations, reporting who is speaking both for and against the Union. There's many more tactics they use, too numerous to list here but the point is that by the end of such campaigns, usually 6 weeks or more, an "enterprising" unionbuster can usually predict fairly accurately how EACH EMPLOYEE WILL VOTE, and that the "secret" ballot reveals a lot more about an employee's feelings on the subject than does a majority sign-up.

This is a "Secret" Ballot? I'll go with the majority sign-up, s'il vous plait.

IMHO, the question of whether or not the EFCA "takes away", "strips", "abolishes", "denies", etc workers rights comes down to one very simple fact:

The Chamber of Commerce is against it.

[OHdem10]

3. Conservative Democrats have a different world view.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Claire is not a conservative Democrat

[Earth Bound Misfit]

4. She was referring to the fact that unions can be de-certified WITHOUT a secret ballot

and opponents of EFCA only point to the certification of unions by majority sign-up ( I *@#$%*@ HATE the rw label "card-check"):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/08/mccaskill-im-not-sure-we_n_172830.html

"I would say that I think it would be fair that we have a secret ballot for the decertification of unions. Right now, businesses can go with the card check. There is no secret ballot to get rid of a union. But there is a requirement of that for people to be able to organize. And to me that seems unfair. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Let's get people on a level playing field ... Until they do that I'm not sure they have a lot of room to complain."

I started a thread about that here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=367x17217

For details of the decertification process by petition rather than secret-ballot, read DUer Joesunionreview reply #2, and my reply # 12 detailing the Sept 2007 "Massacre" (61 NLRB rulings, EVERY ONE a blow to workers rights). The Dana decision was a pre-emptive move to weaken the effects of EFCA, should it eventually be signed into law.

The flip side of recent reports of (BLUE DOG) Dems wavering on EFCA is this:

Union Official: Don't Assume Specter Is The Only Republican We Have On EFCA
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/06/union-official-dont-assum_n_172556.html

Alas, labor officials aren't that concerned, saying they may not even need Specter in order to get a 60th vote for cloture. Asked about how a primary campaign in Pennsylvania could affect the future of EFCA, AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale referred the Huffington Post to a recent conference call in which the union's director of government affairs, Bill Samuel, said that people "should not assume" that Specter is the only Republican who might vote for cloture.

snip

Who could that second Republican be? The chatter among those following this debate seems centered around Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska and, to a far lesser extent, one of the two moderates in Maine. All of which is not to say that the whip-counters in union shops are writing Specter off.

"The minority view is that like most politicians if they are challenged on their flank in the primary they move more towards the right or left to preempt it," emails the aforementioned labor official. "The majority view is that Specter is Specter and he loves doing his own thing and H-A-T-E-S when the right tries to pressure him so this could help solidify his support."

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. I see your point

But I wonder how many others took her comments like I did?

Or maybe I am just stupid. LOL

[Earth Bound Misfit]

7. I think not.

"Or maybe I am just stupid"

I always take notice of and usually enjoy reading your posts.:patriot:

:hi:

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. How nice

Thank you.