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Card check bill fight not over
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LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Jun. 17, 2010 | 8:34 a.m.
Congress pushed aside a piece of key labor legislation in mid-2009 to concentrate instead on health-insurance reform.
But local and national leaders representing both unions and businesses said this week that the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make union organizing easier, is far from dead.
United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger said Monday that the union plans to renew its fight for card-check legislation, a priority for the labor group as it continues to lose thousands of members.
The union has 355,000 active members, down from a high of 1.5 million in 1979. Gettelfinger said the union, which recently organized 2,500 workers at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut, continues to look for members outside the auto industry.
Danny Thompson, executive secretary and treasurer of the AFL-CIO’s Nevada chapter, said the labor group is focusing mostly on the November elections and isn’t homing in on any specific issue right now.
The AFL-CIO isn’t making the Employee Free Choice Act a hot topic during campaign season, but it’s one of several major concerns the group will revisit after November, Thompson said.
“It’s certainly a very important issue, because we believe people should have the right to choose,” he said.
Nor have business groups relented in their opposition to the bill.
Just Wednesday, a statewide group called the Alliance to Protect Nevada Jobs launched to fight the Employee Free Choice Act and other bills its leaders consider job-killers.
The alliance has submitted questionnaires to all Nevada candidates for federal office, asking the hopefuls where they stand on the act. The alliance plans to use the results to let voters know where candidates stand on the bill.
“This issue is very much still alive and a critical one for Nevada’s economy, and its workers and small businesses,” said McKay Daniels, the alliance’s state director. “The national labor unions still keep it as one of their highest priorities, and a number of union leaders have said they’re looking for payback” for the hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign donations they funneled to candidates in the 2008 election.
The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce also remains wary of the Employee Free Choice Act. Fighting the bill is still listed on the organization’s website as one of its policy priorities, and chamber leaders and members had discussions with Nevada congressional delegates about the act during a March trip to Washington, D.C.
“Even though some said (the act) had been put on the back burner for now because of other priorities, we’ve always kept an eye on it,” said Veronica Meter, the chamber’s vice president of government affairs. “It’s very much always been on our radar. We are working closely with our elected officials to make sure they understand the problems it would cause for the business community as we struggle with a deep recession and 14 percent unemployment.”
The act would allow a majority of employees at a company to organize by signing cards. That’s a change from current laws that let employers demand secret-ballot elections before a union can organize. The bill would also boost penalties for retaliation against workers who support unions, and it could require binding arbitration within three months if management and the union can’t agree on a contract.
Detractors say the measure would strip employees of anonymity and enable unions to harass and intimidate workers during organizing drives, while forcing arbitration would drive a wedge between employers and employees. Supporters say the bill would level a playing field that overwhelmingly favors anti-union employers.
Card check has long been a priority for unions, but passing legislation to allow the practice hasn’t been easy. A card-check bill passed the House of Representatives in 2007, but couldn’t survive a Republican filibuster in the Senate. Card check’s latest opportunity for passage faded out in April 2009, after several key lawmakers, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Jim Webb, D-Va., came out against the bill.
In a more recent setback, a union-backed candidate lost in an Arkansas primary to Lincoln.
Among Nevada’s congressional delegation, Sen. John Ensign and Rep. Dean Heller, both Republicans, opposed the most recent version of the Employee Free Choice Act. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic representatives Shelley Berkley and Dina Titus all signed onto the bill as cosponsors.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.
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@J.Bo I suppose that it is ok though that the guy sitting behind the desk with the pen and the bottle of Chivas in the drawer somehow deserves the $300 Million bonus???? The only reason he gets that kind of cash is because he holds his employees hostage. You guys all talk a good line but the bottom line is "I get mine and screw the little guy" Sorry but if it were not for the little guy the boss would be unemployed too. We just want our fair share, you want it all.
Union Scumbags. I feel sorry for the workers that have to be members of the NSEA, etc. just to keep their tires from being slashed.
Danny Thompson - Burn in hell.
@Rod.Johnson, I think it's time you crawled out from under your protective rock and smelled the real world. The so called "card check" is just another way for union pukes to intimidate those who do not wish to be in a union. I'm glad the last company I worked for had a secret ballot because the union was voted down by 92% of the employees. That was a fair vote and the employer did nothing to "intimidate" employees to vote to oust the union. In fact, the employer didn't care one way or the other. The union organizers were highly pissed off and were demanding to know who voted against them. To the unions, and you, I say I have something hairy and white you can kiss...and it's not my head.
Why do most new vehicles come with nice wheels and no hubcaps? The makers could no longer afford to pay $70 an hour in wages and benefits to the union thug to put the hubcaps on. The wheels are cheaper than the hubcap person. Thanks union thugs for putting the hub cap guy out of a job, but he used to make a good salary, RIGHT, USED TO.
Rod,
Get real, I am a union man for one reason only, to stop the harassament and being called a scab. Being in a union and paid $12 an hour does not make you honest, no way and no how. Unions can guarantee you two things, union dues for life and eventually you will be priced out of a job. That is the facts of life. Lots and lots of folks earn decent wages and benefits without union thugs holding management hostage. Union leaders are just LIBERALS POLITICIANS in disguise.
UNIONS - Overpaid, underworked, and undereducated.
Rod you are too funny. Please explain the benefits of some uneducated neanderthal that puts the car together makes more than the guy who spent 5 years in college that designed the car. Next thing you're gonna tell me how trickle up economics works.
Anyone who is anti-union is anti-employee
anyone who is anti-union just wants slaves
anyone who is anti-union is anti-American
move to Germany and start your own communist movement. We are not your slaves.
Union thugs need full employment too
Execute all union leaders.