Voters Reject Corporate Lies About Employee Free Choice

[pberq]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/11/10/voters-reject-corporate-lies-about-employee-free-choice/

Voters Reject Corporate Lies About Employee Free Choice


by James Parks, Nov 10, 2008

Voters last Tuesday soundly rejected the misleading anti-union corporate campaign opposing the Employee Free Choice Act and overwhelmingly backed candidates who support working families.

A poll by Peter D. Hart Research Associates commissioned by the workers’ rights advocacy group American Rights at Work shows that anti-union advertising was among the least important factors in determining voters’ choices for U.S. Senate and that they continue to support making it easier for workers to join unions.

Says American Rights at Work Chair David Bonior:

No matter how hard corporate interests tried to mislead voters, it just didn’t work. State by state, millions were spent, but the fact remains, the Employee Free Choice Act never became the wedge issue corporate interests sought.

Six newly elected senators expressed strong support for the bill, despite the millions of dollars the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the business community spent to try and defeat them. The new senators—Rep. Mark Udall of Colorado, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Rep. Tom Udall of New Mexico, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Warner of Virginia and Jeff Merkley of Oregon—could play a key role in passing the legislation.

The bill did not come to the Senate floor last year after senators failed by nine votes to invoke cloture. The atmosphere also is different at the White House. While President Bush had promised to veto the bill, President-elect Barack Obama co-sponsored the bill in the Senate and has said he will work to pass the bill once he takes office.

(more at link. . .)

[Ichingcarpenter]

1. Orrin Hatch was screaming about the bill this morning

So we know that it will be a fight they are willing to to battle for, and
he said he would fight it all the way.

It will be interesting to see how the new democratic congress with the old leadership
gets this passed quickly

[pberq]

2. Yes, you are right.

They will fight this all the way, because it means sharing power (and profits) with those pesky employees.

By the way, here is a response by the AFL-CIO to one of the most common against the EFCA:


http://www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/majoritysignup.cfm

Do so-called secret ballot elections allow employees a free and fair opportunity to make their own decisions about unions?

* No. By the time employees get to vote, the environment has been so poisoned that free and fair choice isn't an option. People call the current National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election system a secret ballot election—but in fact it's not like any democratic election held anywhere else in our society. It's really a management-controlled election process because corporations have all the power. They control the information workers can receive and routinely poison the process by intimidating, harassing, coercing and even firing people who try to organize unions. No employee has free choice after being browbeaten by a supervisor to oppose the union or being told they may lose their job and livelihood if workers vote for the union.

[gratuitous]

3. Imagine a Secretary of Labor

Imagine having a Secretary of Labor who actually looks out for the interests of Labor.

[pberq]

4. Yes, won't it be nice

The name for the current one should be the Secretary of Anti-Labor