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Big Labor Safeguards Its Big Stake in Obama
First Amendment? Secret Ballots? Fuggetaboutit!
Labor unions have a lot at stake in 2008. The AFL-CIO’s PAC is spending $53M to help elect Barack Obama. More is being spent on behalf of Democratic incumbents and challengers in House and Senate seat races. There is nothing dearer to the hearts of Big Labor than securing the White House and a filibuster-proof Senate majority to help them obtain their number one legislative priority: the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). And Big Labor will stop at nothing, not even the First Amendment, to achieve their aims.
EFCA isn’t about “choice,” but it would radically alter labor law in America. Current law gives workers the right to a secret ballot vote on whether or not to have a union represent them in their workplace. The right to a secret ballot election has been a mainstay of federal labor law for decades. And just as it does in political elections, it ensures that neither unions nor companies can strong arm employees or exact revenge based on how they vote. EFCA would substitute a “card check” system where employers would be forced to recognize and bargain with a union if a simple majority of employees signed union authorization cards. Those cards are routinely signed by employees in the presence of union officials.
In short, the EFCA abolishes secret ballot union elections. In the words of the statute once that 50% threshold is passed “the [NLRB] shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual organization as the labor representative.”(Emphasis added.)
In the last Congress the measure passed the House but stalled in the Senate, falling nine votes short of the 60 needed for cloture. Gains by Big Labor-supported Democrats in the Senate would deprive opponents of the EFCA of the ability to filibuster. With the White House secure (or 2/3 majority in Congress to override a veto should John McCain be elected) Big Labor would have its prize.
Big Labor’s progress is all the more remarkable given how unpopular the measure is with actual voters. Polling this spring conducted by a business coalition dubbed the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (”Coalition”) found that voters by overwhelming margins in Minnesota, Colorado, and Maine opposed the measure. Moreover, voters were less likely to vote for Democratic Senate candidates if they supported EFCA.
With the prospect of Democratic gains in 2008, the Coalition launched an eye catching ad campaign which created national buzz and headaches for Democratic candidates. Featuring Vince Curatola (better known as “Johnny Sack” in the Sopranos), the first ad showed Curatola as a labor mobster crowding into a voting booth which vanishes with a snap of his fingers, leaving the hapless worker at the mercy of a gang of menacing labor thugs. That got laughs and plenty of buzz.
But then the Coalition turned it up a notch, taking on Al Franken in his Minnesota Senate race against Republican Norm Coleman. Curatola was back in a new ad, snapping his fingers to remove a recalcitrant cut out figure of Coleman and replacing it with Al Franken, who the ad informs voters favors EFCA and wants to eliminate secret ballot elections.
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Jennifer Rubin is PJM's Washington, DC, editor. She also blogs at Commentary’s Contentions.
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9 Comments
1. RE:We are seeing a disturbing trend in Democrat circles to use grovernment to shutdown free speech. (The Ayers ad, these ads, the ‘Fairness Doctrine’, ‘Hate Speech’ laws, etc).
It seems like Democrats have a problem with the First Amenndment wery much at all.
Aug 27, 2008 - 10:05 am 2. MarkD:Can’t the Democrats be indicted under RICO? This looks like a criminal conspiracy to force union membership on folks who would rather not join one.
Aug 27, 2008 - 10:18 am 3. BritAm:Does anyone know if Mark Udall skipped the EFCA vote in the house? I’ve been waiting for this front to be opened here in Colorado.
Aug 27, 2008 - 2:02 pm 4. hp:@RE
which is weird because somehow I thought they were the ones who WANTED it. am I missing something or has the party changed that much?
you haven’t even scratched the surface of free speech stomping, either. uncountable numbers of individuals have already found their voices locked down across the internet.
Aug 28, 2008 - 3:51 am 5. Don:Big labor is about one thing, power for big labor. Welfare of the membership? The memberships are in thrall to those who will “take care of them”. They will take what the leadership feels they deserve.. The labor movement in this country is corrupt and feels “entitled” to determine what is best for it’s membership and for those (so foolish) as to not belong to associations run by “their betters”.
Aug 28, 2008 - 5:41 am 6. pappy:auto makers are losing money year after year, they can’t seem to grasp the notion that maybe the dips aren’t doing them any favors. by taking away the secret ballot it sounds like the dipocraps are following the lead of yugo shaveshis. maybe state ran t.v. will be next. another attempt to undermine the constitution by the bungholes that claim to love it so much. it would not surprise me if it was a group of pigs voting for more food, but to see every dipo senator be for this marxism is appalling to say the least.
Aug 28, 2008 - 8:08 am 7. Rubicon:And as mentioned by another, EFCA is not the end of the attempt to silence opposition to issues. Reinstatement of the so called “Fairness Doctrine” is also on the agenda. Many are apoplectic that talk radio has been so wildly successful. The hate of those who want this doctrine, is palpable. They simply do not want any speech that offers a view “they” do not subscribe to.
Aug 28, 2008 - 12:14 pm 8. Assistant Village Idiot:These actions are dangerous. These actions reflect the will of the select or elite, to silence the majority, through the mis use of law & regulatory systems.
I care not which party is pushing for such despicable actions. I care that ANY party is pushing for such actions. I care that some think this nations people need to be told what to do, how to do it, what to think, and when to think.
Around the world we see multiple examples of nations & bureaucratic organizations and NGO’s that want opposition to “their” views, to be silenced. Whether its Hugo Chavez shutting down TV stations, or Putin controlling all media, or educational advisory boards determining what can and cannot be said in textbooks that teach our children. When one suppresses free speech, factual history, and demands no one speak out against oppressors or oppression, it is unAmerican and unacceptable.
The media seems content to allow some to do as they want, why failing to even mention their despicable activities to us. Such is the state of the media today.
Stories are buried. Not because they are untrue, but because the story would do harm to a friend or to a favored political party. These are not the actions of freedom loving people. These are the actions of those who expect to be part of the elite who will get the benefits while others serve them.
An example: It was widely known in media circles that John Edwards was having an affair. The National Enquirer had evidence. No, not just hearsay, but actual photo’s and they could put Edwards in the same hotel as his mistress, while he was not checked in, or she was not checked in. The number of incidents was too many to deny there may be a connection & that alone warranted a story.
The establishment media decided they wanted actual proof of them together physically before they would even mention the possibility of an affair. The New York Times and/or Washington Post admitted they had information, but because they did not want to mention this due to the guys wifes illness, they decided not to run it. Yet when a staff person from the 2004 McCain campaign said he was told by someone who was told by someone else (no names were ever given as to who those someone’s were), the NYT did a front page above the fold major story exposing the affair.
This was all discredited when the campaign staffer admitted he had no evidence & based on a number of supposed meetings, and the fact McCain was not even in the same city when the meetings supposedly took place, the NYT finally dropped the story. They never admitted the information had been discredited.
So what we have is a media willing to hang some out to dry, but not favored others, and to do so using false information that is simply vicious rumor meant to discredit. Its called lying where I am from.
Card check is a dangerous tool for thuggish union organizers to get hold of. If their cause is so right, then it should stand the test of the traditional secret ballot. What’s next for these guys, forcing presidential elections to card check so opposing political operatives can go after those who fail to vote for their candidate?
Palin’s husband is a union steelworker, and that may count for a considerable offset to the $53M. When has a union person been anywhere near a presidential ticket?
Aug 30, 2008 - 1:58 pm 9. Commentary » Blog Archive » What Difference Does It Make?:[...] one isolated but important issue: the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act, which will make secret union elections a thing of the past. If you think it’s just concerns [...]
Oct 14, 2008 - 11:39 am