Posts Tagged ‘EFCA’

With REPUBLICAN Scott Brown winning the Senate seat formerly held by Ted Kennedy, will the person filling the seat kill EFCA, the pro-labor bill authored by his predecessor?  Business people across America hope so.  One thing is for sure; Senator Brown killed the filibuster-proof Democratic majority.  How ironic!

Senator Brown’s election will have a huge impact on Washington and raises a lot of questions.  Is this the final nail in Big Labor’s coffin?  Is EFCA dead, this time for good?  Is health care dead?  Does this mean that Obama will have to learn to deal with Republicans this year and grid lock next year?  The Democrats had a “full house”.  They seem to have blown the opportunity they had.  Obama and the Democrats seemed unstoppable but it is clear the tide is turning.

EFCA is not dead.  There are a number regulations the Democrats could pass, without going to the floor, to pay labor back for their work in the campaign and with health care.  These regulations would provide most of the benefits that labor is looking for.  That is probably the safest route for the Democrats to take.  It would pay their debt to Big Labor and it would keep them out of the headlines as supporting labor’s big payoff.  The head of the AFL-CIO threatened the Democrats last week that they had better deliver in the first quarter if they want any help in November. 

Today’s results clearly proves, they gonna need it!

The AFL-CIO President, Richard Trumka, warned wavering Democrats to come through on the labor agenda—from EFCA to health care reform and a jobs bill. In addition to warning Democrats, he predicted EFCA passage by the end of the first quarter, in a speech he gave in Washington today.

Unions invested millions of dollars and thousands of hours of volunteer efforts to help the party increase its House and Senate margins and take the White House in 2008.

“One year into the Obama administration and one year into a Congress with strong Democratic majorities, we need leadership action that matches the urgency that is felt so deeply by working people,” Trumka said. “We will not vote for politicians who think they can push a few crumbs our way and then continue the failed economic policies of the last 30 years.”

“I think you’ll see the Employee Free Choice Act pass in the first quarter of 2010,” said Trumka at the National Press Club in Washington.

Trumka went on to say “The systematic silencing of American workers by denying our right to form unions is at the heart of the disappearance of good jobs in America,”

“We must pass the Employee Free Choice Act so that workers can have the chance to turn bad jobs into good jobs, and so we can reduce the inequality which is undermining our prospects for stable economic growth.”

A top legislative priority for unions, the bill has been stalled since its March introduction. The health care debate has sidelined EFCA and the unions have been supporting the Democratic position but want payback and soon.

Over the summer, EFCA negotiations centered on replacing the so-called card-check provision with one that would significantly speed up union elections, according to many sources. Campaigns could start as early as seven to 21 days after election petitions have been filed instead of the usual six weeks or longer.

It’s unclear whether a compromise exists that has the support of the entire 60-member Senate Democratic caucus, which is exactly large enough to squelch GOP delaying tactics like those that killed the bill in 2007.

Trumka’s comments seem to indicate that the Senate will turn to EFCA after it approves a final health care reform bill. Trumka is confident that unions can overcome Republican roadblocks.

“We’re going to have the Employee Free Choice Act despite the determined efforts of the Republican Party and a group of businesspeople who really don’t want any kind of labor law reform at all,” he said.

Many business owners never hear of the National Labor Relations Board , until they get a letter notifying them that their employees have petitioned for a union election. So what is the NLRB? Simply put, the NLRB is an arm of the government that protects the rights of employees to either organize and join a union, remain union free, or decertify and effectively kick the union out. According to the NLRB Web Site:

The National Labor Relations Board is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the primary law governing relations between unions and employers in the private sector. The statute guarantees the right of employees to organize and to bargain collectively with their employers, and to engage in other protected concerted activity with or without a union, or to refrain from all such activity.

However, if you sit in any NLRB office for a few minutes you will quickly realize that the NLRB is NOT unbiased.  In fact, they are very much PRO-UNION. As one official once told me, “We are in the business of making it easy to organize.” This bias comes as a surprise to many business people when they go to an NLRB hearing where a member of the NLRB sits as judge and jury on the issue of the day.

Employees too, can be surprised by the response of the NLRB. If employees want to organize, they will be rushed into an office and a friendly NLRB attorney will carefully walk them through the process. However, decerification is often met with cold response. They will answer your questions if you ask directly, but you have to ask. Employees must ask directly:

• What do I need to do to deceritify a union where I work?
• What forms must be completed to file for decertification?
• Will you give me a blank form and walk me through how to fill it out?
• Can I have extra copies of the form?
• What wording do I need to have on the “Decertification Petition”?

The answers the NLRB gives employees will be all they need to know to legally decertify the union.  You can follow the this link to find the NLRB office nearest you. You can call or visit the office nearest you to get more information. The NLRB is there to protect employees. Everyone has a right to seek and receive their help. Quoting the NLRB web site says:

Employees have the right to form, join, support or assist unions, also known as labor organizations, who may bargain collectively with the employer on the employees’ behalf seeking to modify wages or working conditions. Employees also have the right to engage in other protected concerted activities without a union seeking to improve their wages and other working conditions.

Employees also have the right to refrain from engaging in these activities or to seek removal of a union from the workplace.

President Barack Obama’s rival for the White House last fall will block the confirmation of one of his nominees for the National Labor Relations Board.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, criticized Craig Becker, Obama’s choice for one of the Democratic slots on the board, at a Wednesday, October 21, meeting of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Although the panel approved Becker and two other NLRB nominees, 15-8, McCain said that he would place a “hold” on Becker, denying him and the others a vote by the full Senate.

Echoing objections from business organizations, McCain is wary of several articles that Becker has written on labor relations. McCain asserted that Becker, currently the associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union, would try to circumvent labor law through NLRB rulings.

“This is probably the most controversial nominee that I’ve seen in a long time,” McCain said. “I will, and others will, put a hold on his nomination.”

The NLRB has been operating for nearly two years with only two members—one Republican and one Democrat. At full strength, it has five. With Obama in the White House, the board will have a Democratic majority.

The tenor of Becker’s articles has the business community worried that the NLRB political pendulum will swing more forcefully—this time toward unions—than it normally does when a new president takes office. The NLRB is an independent agency that governs relations between unions and employers.

McCain vented his frustration that Becker had not appeared before the committee. The chairman of the panel, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, however, said that typically hearings are conducted only for the NLRB chairman.

“The tradition has been for a long time that we do not have hearings on these nominees,” Harkin said. “At this transition point, I want to continue that tradition.”

The committee reins passed from Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, to Harkin several weeks ago following Kennedy’s death. Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyoming and the ranking Republican on the committee, expressed reservations about Becker but voted with Harkin and the panel Democrats to approve all three NLRB nominees.

Harkin downplayed the need for a hearing, pointing out that Becker had answered 282 written questions from Republicans.

But that didn’t satisfy McCain. “There are a lot of questions about his answers to the questions,” he said.

McCain’s move was welcomed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The organization spearheaded an October 20 letter to the Senate Labor Committee opposing Becker’s nomination that also was signed by the Society for Human Resource Management and the HR Policy Association.

“Many of the positions taken in his writings are well outside the mainstream and would disrupt years of established precedent and the delicate balance in current labor law,” the letter states.

A chamber analysis of a 1993 Becker article for the University of Minnesota Law Review says that he “expresses the view that employers should have no role in union organizing campaigns and union representation elections.”

But worries about Becker go beyond his approach to labor law. Steven Law, chief legal officer and general counsel at the chamber, said there are questions about whether Becker played a role in the vote-buying scandal that drove former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office.

Law also said that Becker may have drafted Obama administration executive orders on organized labor while working at the SEIU.

“Senator McCain ensures that there will be a more substantive debate on this nominee than he received in the committee,” Law said. “We’ve got an Act II to play out next.”

An SEIU spokesman referred questions about Becker to the Senate labor committee Democratic staff.

Harkin defended Becker, a Yale Law School graduate and former UCLA law professor. He said that in his answers to committee questions Becker had pledged to “fairly and impartially decide cases based on the relevant facts and established law.”

“I am confident that he will approach his new position objectively and without bias,” Harkin said.

With a bill that would make it easier for workers to form unions stalled in the Senate, many observers say that it is possible for a Democratic-majority NLRB to implement changes that would benefit labor in organizing campaigns.

“They could achieve through decision-making a lot of the facets that the Employee Free Choice Act in its current form proposes,” said John Bowen, a partner at Ford & Harrison in Minneapolis.

But he cautioned that major policy changes made by the board would be ephemeral.

“You’d be flipping back and forth depending on who’s in the White House,” Bowen said.

—Mark Schoeff Jr.

Big labor is finally pushing organizers to use the web to develop issues, recruit sympathetic employees and conduct organizing campaigns. Recently, the Teamsters conducted a workshop to….

“….introduce you (the organizer) to ways you can use your own web site and other free web applications to organize workers or mobilize supporters for both online and offline action”

In addition to teaching organizers about how to leverage social media and email, unions like the Teamsters have taken it one step further and set up a www.teamsteractive.com that they defined as:

“the ultimate tool for Teamster organizations to maintain a professional web presence with up-to-the minute information and powerful membership communication tools.”

Along with the web building tools, the Teamsters provide instructions and down loadable presentations that instruct organizers on how to use the web to identify targets, issues, and sympathetic employees. This is Big Labor’s version of Web 2.0 for union organizers. It challenges organizers to consider:

• What are your goals?
• Who are you trying to reach?
• What actions do you want them to take?
• Who are the “influentials?”
• How will you spread word about the resources on your site?

Who are “influentials?” The Teamsters define them as:

• Water cooler experts
• Read and write Blogs
• Politically active – online or off
• Regularly participate in email actions
• Active online social networkers MySpace, FaceBook, Listservs

Big labor is clearly looking to introduce unions to the younger, more internet savvy generation. Businesses should take note and ensure they are ready to take their campaign tactics to the next level to meet the new threats.

Many expected news about EFCA coming out of the AFL-CIO’s national convention in Pittsburgh and they were not disappointed.  In an interview with the Washington Post yesterday, Arlin Specter outlined many of the key components of his revisions to EFCA, which he expects will pass before year’s end. Key parts of Specter’s revisions include:

• Keeping the secret ballot so employees will be able to vote privately
• Sharply reducing the time between petitioning for election and the vote
• Guaranteeing union access to employees, on company time & company property,  if they are required to attend anti-union meetings
• Tripling employer fines for unfair labor practices
• Baseball arbitration after an undefined period of contract negotiations

There are still a number of questions left unanswered.  How long will a company have to run an election?  What will trigger arbitration?  Will organizers be allowed to visit employees homes?  Will triple penalties apply to employers only or will unions come under the same penalties?

At this point, smart employers will focus on training their management team to avoid unfair labor practices and teach them how to talk with employees about unions.  Employers should also survey their employees and conduct threat assessments to identify issues and address them before an organizer attacks on those vulnerable areas.    Finally, employers should work with their leadership team on exercising best practices when dealing with their workforce.

Remember, in the vast majority of union elections, employees do not vote for unions, they vote against management.

The AFL-CIO is holding their national convention in Pittsburgh and the once Republican turned Democrat Senator from Pennsylvania is taking full advantage of his new found left wing support.

The Associated Press reported:

Sen. Arlen Specter tells the AFL-CIO that he will support legislation to make it easier to form unions.

Specter also predicts Congress will pass a compromise version of the bill this year that will be “totally satisfactory to labor.”

His position is a change from earlier this year, when he said the struggling economy made it a bad time to pass the bill.

Since then, Specter has switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party. Specter is facing a strong primary challenge from Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Sestak and is counting on union support to help him hold onto his seat

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The Teamsters, right now, are descending on Washington DC and pushing every Senator to support the Employee Free Choice Act.  An email went out this morning from the Teamsters.  In part it said:

“Our Day of Action JUST started – we need your help!

Do your part to fight greedy CEO’s and corporate lobbyists who are trying to kill the Employee Free Choice Act.

DIAL 1-888-650-9715 and tell your Senators to support the Employee Free Choice Act!

A year after Lehman Brothers, AIG, and the rest of the finance industry nearly brought the U.S. economy to its knees, CEO’s are back at it, lining their pockets and hurting the American worker.

That’s why we need the Employee Free Choice Act – a bill in Congress that would help more people negotiate for better wages, health care, and working conditions by forming a union.

As you read this, over 300 state leaders from around the country, including Teamster volunteers, are descending on Capitol Hill for a massive Day of Action to meet with Senators and urge them to support this important bill………..”

The real fight over EFCA has now started.

Recently, a nationally known pro-union web site, Strategic Organizing, attacked Metreks as a “union buster who’s first tactic is to drive a wedge between supervisors and employee.” I laughed out loud when I read it. They were responding to my recent post on “How To Win A 5 Day Union Campaign.”

The post discusses how companies CAN stay union free even if EFCA passes in the next few weeks. The part the union felt was “driving a wedge between supervisors and employees,” was where I said that the first thing a company should do is to educate their management team on how to improve labor relations and union avoidance basics.  The point of Metreks’ training is to cover topics every supervisor should know such as:

• Tell employees to get “union promises” in writing
• Remind employees of their rights to privacy even when unions ask for personal information or tries to visit them at home
• Explain that a union card is a contract between the union and the employee and when signed, gives that union power of attorney to represent that employee in future bargaining actions
• Talk about how Unions are in business to make money and they make money by collecting dues, fines, and assessments from union members

What part of this is “driving a wedge between supervisors and employees.”  Teaching the truth and instructing supervisors how to legally conduct themselves in an organizing effort is not driving a wedge but spreading the truth and helping to stop needless legal actions that costs companies millions every year.

If this is what unions call “Union Busting”, then I’m guilty.  Then again, can anyone think of one instance where a union did anything other than harm companies they organize?  What if we called unions “Company Killers.”  How does that help employees?  Think I’m wrong?  Look at the record.  Ask anybody who use to be a member of a union if they would rather work for a company that is unionized or union free and see what they say.

One final point.  When you are in the business of helping companies stay union free, and you get attacked by a union, you must be doing a good job.  Thanks for the endorsement!

SEIU sent out emails today urging all members to sign up for mobile alerts so the SEIU can immediately rally their members “When your Senator or Congressman needs to hear our voices on the health insurance reform, Employee Free Choice, or immigration debates.

When our members — your brothers and sisters — require support at the workplace, the state capitol, or in the streets.”

This is more evidence of big labor investing and building infrastructure to sway political opinions and organize non-union businesses. Like the old song says, “these times, they are a chang’n”. Is your business keeping up? Do you have a Strategic Labor Relations plan to deal with all the legal changes, threats, and union tactics? If not, you need to take action now. The times may be changing, but time stands still for no man.