More Pushback on Timing for Employee Free Choice Vote
TPM alum Greg reported yesterday that Blue Dog Democrats had convinced House leaders to let the Senate go first on the Employee Free Choice Act, the labor movement's central legislative priority this year.
The conservative Blue Dogs' lack of love for the EFCA -- dubbed the "card-check" bill by GOP critics -- is no secret on Capitol Hill and even in Arkansas, where one columnist wrote yesterday that one prominent Blue Dog was reassuring local business leaders about slowing progress on the measure.
But have the Blue Dogs truly convinced House leaders to hold off on EFCA? I asked the House Education and Labor Committee, where Chairman George Miller (D-CA) has yet to even introduce this year's version of the EFCA bill, and got a short, to-the-point answer: "No decision has been made on legislative strategy for the Employee Free Choice Act."
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I hope the labor leaders will keep putting the pressure on for this bill to be introduced and passed! It's time for labor to be in the driver's seat and I do not mean the back seat!
February 19, 2009 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
EFCA easily passed the House last year and it will again, despite the Blue Dogs. The Senate is where it will all be decided. So I don't think letting the Senate go first is necessarily a problem. But obviously it will have to wait until Landslide Al is seated and the Illinois disaster (thanks Harry Reid!) is addressed. If that happens, if all Dems support it (that means you Ben Nelson), and if Arlen Specter repeats his cloture vote, EFCA will get to 60. Clearly, there is no margin for error.
No matter what, though, the drumbeat for EFCA has to get louder and louder, with the message that this is the ultimate economic stimulus, the ONLY way to expand the middle class and create sustainable (as opposed to bubble, bust & borrow) economic growth.
February 19, 2009 11:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's a good strategy, really.
February 19, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's a good strategy, really.
February 19, 2009 12:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
EFCA is just an over reach! The Right is going to just go into a tizzy,and so will a lot of members of the left like me who don't want our secret ballots taken away. This could back fire majorly.
Remember, Union Yes, but not every Union. As we all know, some Unions suck. Don't take away my secret ballot.
February 19, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
EFCA doesn't take away your secret ballot. If just 30 percent of the employees in a workplace prefer holding an election to card-check authorization, an election will be held. What EFCA does is let the workers decide what process they will follow to determine union representation. This should be the workers' decision, not management's.
Besides, there is nothing free or fair about how union representation elections are held today -- not with employees being illegally fired and retaliated against for trying to organize a union, not with mandatory meetings, not with management threatening to close plants when they have no intention of actually doing so, and not with one side (management) having guaranteed access to the voters while the other has none.
February 19, 2009 12:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
The labor people I talk to were talking about it being introduced in the Senate first well before this news came out. (It's mainly waiting for Franken to be seated.) This whole story is some kind of kabuki, maybe to let the Blue Dogs save face by claiming that they somehow got a "weaker" Senate bill.
February 19, 2009 1:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
While EFCA won't necessarily take away the secret ballot, it could, and probably will in most cases. We are all going to lose if we are not honest about it. The secret ballot is holy to a lot of us and everything that threatens it threatens all of us.
We don't want this argument to become "will it take away the ballot or not". We want the argument focused on what will help the most working men and women who built this country. Clearly, Unions help everyone. We can build our country and our support our workers without losing the secret ballot. We have to. We don't want to fight against our own union and there will be a fight if we take away the secret ballot.
February 19, 2009 1:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
While EFCA won't necessarily take away the secret ballot, it could, and probably will in most cases. We are all going to lose if we are not honest about it. The secret ballot is holy to a lot of us and everything that threatens it threatens all of us.
We don't want this argument to become "will it take away the ballot or not". We want the argument focused on what will help the most working men and women who built this country. Clearly, Unions help everyone. We can build our country and our support our workers without losing the secret ballot. We have to. We don't want to fight against our own union and there will be a fight if we take away the secret ballot.
February 19, 2009 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink