Employee Free Choice Act (including "card check")

The Republicans are exhuming some pretty old boogiemen here, with the UAW back in the news as the villains of Detroit and now the right-wing meme of "card check", which consitutes part of the Employee Free Choice Act and is, as far as I can tell, actually just a few measures to ensure that companies don't get to browbeat their employees into not joining a union. Is anyone here afraid of "card check" or the larger Act itself?

Is there a moment here for the unions to seize, what with a looming recession, a huge number of unorganized immigrant workers coming into low-paying jobs, and a low-point in trust for management? Or are the Republicans going to successfully demagogue "card check" and the Detroit bailout to drive the last nail into the coffin of organized labor?

Please also use this thread as a catch-all for "sky is falling" right wingers who see any advance in economic security for the American working class as the total victory of communism:

"This is the demise of a civilization," moaned Bernie Marcus, cofounder and former CEO of The Home Depot, during an Oct. 17 conference call about card check. "This is how a civilization disappears. I'm sitting here as an elder statesman, and I'm watching this happen, and I don't believe it."

Those UAW workers sure are economically secure, yup.

Marcus isn't talking about the UAW he's talking about the Employee Free Choice Act (including "card check")

Good for Marcus.

Kerm I have to admit I don't follow either of your comments.

Tracer, explain what it means to be involved in a 'card check'.

you don't have to line up and vote into a ballot box on a particular day in the workplace with everyone watching, if you want to join the union. you just sign your name on a card whenever and turn it in to the union rep. when he has enough names to constitute a majority of that workforce, he bursts into the CEOs office, wild-eyed, and dumps a trash bag of signed cards onto his desk and yells "you're MINE now you fucking PIG" and drinks the good scotch right out of the bottle.

Isn't the objection to card check that the ballot is no longer secret, which leaves the door open to coercion?

(Note: I only know what Fox News told me about this during the election, so take this with a pinch.)

The door to coercion was kicked in a long time ago. Employers under "threat" of unionization routinely hold captive-audience meetings where union-busting specialists are brought in to explain exactly why unions are bad. "Agitators" can be marginalized or fired. Anti-union employees can be promoted. That is how it CURRENTLY is. So it's a bit rich for the right to characterize the far more anonymous and discreet system of filling out a card (without the employer's knowledge) as some kind end-run.

By the way if you have more questions about the details of the Act, this is a good link:

http://letmegooglethatforyou.com/?q=Employee+Free+Choice+Act

Tracer OTM. My rep Keith Ellison is the big cheerleader for getting this law through the House.

OK, but surely making it easier for both sides to play rough during unionization efforts is not the answer? I'm probably being naive here.

How is signing your name on a form in front of a union organizer more anonymous than a secret ballot?

Because your employer - the one who can fire you - doesn't know you're doing it.

How the fuck is that anonymous? Someone from the union is standing there watching you.

How is it more anonymous than voting yay or nay in a secret ballot where no one knows what you're doing?

I don't understand this thread any more.

The person you need to hide your vote from is your employer, who holds the keys to your economic happiness - remember you're in a non-unionized job. You could just be fired. Personally I don't give a shit if some union that doesn't even represent me yet knows how I voted.

I mean what do you imagine the union rep is doing? Lightly swinging a baseball bat as he testily eyes your trembling signature? Unions are so much on the defensive these days - well, for the past 20 years - that they - in general, mind - walk on eggshells not to fall foul of the law. Oh sure they'll hold meetings. They'll try as hard as they can to persuade workers that it's in their interest to organize their workplace. But it actually is in workers' interest to organize their workplace.

The person you need to hide your vote from is your employer, who holds the keys to your economic happiness

if i felt this threatened by my employer, i'd probably just look for another job?

Oh thanks for letting me know who I need to hide my vote from. You don't give a shit so no one should be allowed to by law. Brilliant.

No one should be allowed to what?

Do you realize that the only people in favor of the "secret ballot" system are management? Why do you think that is?

Oh my god.

Anonymity is not really the thing here it is whether the organising is public or not. A secret ballot is public and it means an employer can put pressure on a workforce not to organise, whereas by gathering support by collecting workers' assents to organising means that there is less opportunity for union busting and it means that a workforce could decide to organise and present that as a fait accompli to the employer which would mean that employees at notoriously anti-union places like wal-mart could finally have a chance of standing up for their rights as employees.

"if i felt this threatened by my employer, i'd probably just look for another job?"

Haha right-o. Good luck with that.

Unions are shrinking nationwide because management mind control rays are coercing workers into voting against unionizing in secret ballots. Not because there are legitimate arguments against unionizing in some cases.

Organizers can't unionize workers because management gets a chance to offer their viewpoint in a union campaign election. So unfair.

Coercion in some companies is rife. The only way individuals can stand up to power is by banding together and organising so tilting the scales in favour of allowing them to do this more easily is fine by me.

Why would they secretly vote against unionizing if they want to unionize?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/may/01/usnews.supermarkets

"offer their viewpoint"

Haha wow you are delusional.

The irony of the "secret ballot" system, Kerm, is that it's MORE PUBLIC than signing a card.

I mean, it's nice to know of your unwavering commitment to the democratic process but it's hard to believe you're aware of how the two systems work in practice. Card signing was the norm until a couple of decades ago, when union-busting measures of all kinds starting to take hold. Union membership has now dropped to all-time lows (for plenty of other reasons too, of course).

But let's say your worst-case scenario comes to pass: as a result of "card check" a workplace is pressured and browbeaten into accepting unionization - even if they kinda didn't want to! Now, what happens? All the union has "won" is the right to try and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the employer - which the union membership THEN VOTES ON IN A SECRET BALLOT. If a strike is called, the membership votes - in a SECRET BALLOT. If the union can't negotiate an acceptable agreement, then the membership then votes, in another secret ballot, on whether to decertify their unionization.

Which sounds more democratic? What I just described, or a system where the employer gets to say when, where and how a vote will be held, and is free to call as many "employee meetings" as they want in order to dissuade their workforce from organizing?

Seriously no one who has ever worked for a company whose employees were considering unionization would be so blaise as to refer to kind of heavy-handed pressure companies put on employees to not unionize as "offering their viewpoint." Take your troll shit elsewhere.

kettle chips all over again!

(btw i can see why this measure is a good thing)

Calm down, xp. I wasn't being literal.