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Labor Unions Fear Rollback of Rights if G.O.P. Wins

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NeoConsSuck Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 03:45 PM
Original message
Labor Unions Fear Rollback of Rights if G.O.P. Wins
Source: NY Times.com

Organized labor is deeply worried about what happens after Tuesday.

By many measures, labor unions have been the Republicans’ fiercest, biggest-spending opponents in this year’s campaign, laying out more than $200 million in hopes of safeguarding the Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

So it should be no surprise that Republicans, who appear to stand a good chance of winning control of the House or the Senate, are signaling that they plan to push bills and strategies to undermine labor’s political clout and its ability to grow.

“Republicans are likely to pursue a version of what Samuel Gompers often said: ‘Reward your friends and punish your enemies,’ ” said Joseph McCartin, a labor historian at Georgetown University.

One bill that is popular among Republicans would prohibit employers from ever agreeing to unionization through “card check,” a process often used today in which an employer recognizes a union as soon as a majority of workers sign pro-union cards — without holding a secret-ballot election. Another bill would severely crimp labor’s campaign spending by barring unions from using any portion of a union member’s dues for political purposes unless the member first gives written permission.



Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/us/politics/02labor.html?_r=1&hp



It never ceases to amaze me how republican voters can vote against their own self interests time and time again.
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Deep13 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
1. And well they should. nt
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saigon68 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 04:22 PM
Response to Reply #1
6. They don't need to "FEAR IT"
It will be reality
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doc03 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 04:01 PM
Response to Original message
2. It would also probably amaze you how many union members
vote Republican. I think the success of the labor unions had in creating an upper middle class has to some extent backfired and turned them into Republicans. It seemed like where I worked the people that had the higher paying jobs changed to Republicans. I remember back in the early 80's when the steel business was really bad the guys in the hot mill took a vote to go to a 4 day week and it was the highest paid people on the mill that voted it down. A roller on the mill would make two to three times what a laborer made but they were the ones that said they couldn't get by on 4 days pay.
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pasto76 Donating Member (835 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 04:15 PM
Response to Reply #2
4. hell yes, even though we are "skilled" labor, most members are uneducated
try being a union member here in Colorado. Ive met only one other democrat in 5 years of ironworking. I just cant believe how stupid a person can be.
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Ninten12 Donating Member (61 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 08:53 PM
Response to Reply #2
18. Not amazed brother, sickened is more like it!
There are tons of highly-paid union folks around here... Yes they are proud wing nuts. They ride around in their pick-up trucks and SUVs with Bush/Cheney stickers on them and whine about taxes and "those people" who are socialists and ready to take their guns away.

However it's like I keep on saying... No sympathy for them and the fact that they are losing their homes and having their jobs shipped to Vietnam (it's cheaper than China after all).
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hughee99 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 04:13 PM
Response to Original message
3. "Reward your friends and punish your enemies"?
Edited on Mon Nov-01-10 04:14 PM by hughee99
I just heard that phrase the other day. I can't quite remember who said it...
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pattmarty Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 04:22 PM
Response to Original message
5. It's the fucking education system, and it's getting worse with Arne and his "ideology".
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gratuitous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 04:30 PM
Response to Original message
7. The Times falls for it
The flip side of a "card check" election is not a "secret ballot" election; it's an employer-monitored and -controlled election. The Republicans have, once again, succeeded in supplanting facts with a lie. "Are you against the 'secret ballot'? Unions don't want you to have 'secret ballots'! Bleahahahahahah!" The alternative to card check is elections for unionization controlled by the employers who whoopsie! just happen to find out how everyone voted, and suddenly the employees who voted to unionize are all fired. Most of them have sterling employment records, but now they're a bunch of low-life disgruntled scum, whose heretofore unsuspected and undocumented incompetence would have brought the entire company down.
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rayofreason Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 05:40 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. Got a link...
...to document the following?

"The alternative to card check is elections for unionization controlled by the employers who whoopsie! just happen to find out how everyone voted, and suddenly the employees who voted to unionize are all fired. Most of them have sterling employment records, but now they're a bunch of low-life disgruntled scum, whose heretofore unsuspected and undocumented incompetence would have brought the entire company down."

I'd sure like to have the evidence of that to show people.
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gratuitous Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 05:52 PM
Response to Reply #9
11. Start here
http://www.seiu.org/2009/01/the-economic-argument-for-the-employee-free-choice-act.php

It's the SEIU website with some good information. The NLRB specifically authorizes card check as a method of organizing a bargaining unit, but under the domination of our good friends at the Chamber of Commerce, the Labor Department hasn't seen fit to enforce its own regulations on behalf of Labor.

There are also all kinds of stories about union organizers suddenly terminated or let go because of union activity, stretching back to the 19th century, and continuing to the present day with a depressing sameness to them. Once valued employees suddenly discovered to be stealth slackers despite glowing annual reviews as soon as they began advocating for the rights of everyone in the work place.
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rayofreason Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 07:49 PM
Response to Reply #11
16. Thanks n/t
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Scruffy1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 06:23 PM
Response to Reply #9
13. try the Jimmy Johns Workers Unio website
Having been involved in several Union organizing attempts, some successful and some not, I can say that the employers always break the laws and nearly always get away with it, especially under the last administration. If the Democratic Party of the United States of America truly gave a shit they would have passed EFCA a long time ago. Read any book on labor history, if you know how.
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rayofreason Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 07:48 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. Thanks n/t
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Scruffy1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 06:16 PM
Response to Reply #7
12. This whole article is BS anti union propaganda
No employer I know has recognized a union after a majority has signed cards. First they call for an election then use the intervening period to break every law the can from intimidation to firing knowing even if they are causght nothing will happen to them, except a revote. A Union has to use a pac for political contributions now, and can't donate directly. I swear the Fucking time is one of the worst sources of information on the planet.
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No Elephants Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 04:54 PM
Response to Original message
8. Union members vote Rethug while their unions donate a good hunk of their union dues to Democrats
Unions need to educate their members more and Dems need to fight harder for working people, and do a lot better at messaging.


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yurbud Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 05:48 PM
Response to Original message
10. Democrats forget the ''reward your friends'' part after unions bust a nut and dig deep to fork over
the bucks to get them in office.
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deacon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 06:36 PM
Response to Original message
14. They an count on it. They are going to finish off what they started, destroying everything in sight.
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Canuckistanian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Nov-01-10 07:59 PM
Response to Original message
17. Join the club, Labor Unions
There are a lot of groups fearing a GOP win.

This ain't your grandfather's GOP anymore. They want BLOOD.
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defendandprotect Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-02-10 01:34 PM
Response to Original message
19. K&R
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newspeak Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-02-10 06:46 PM
Response to Reply #19
20. and if you can find a copy of "Confessions of a Union Buster"
the people in this country would know what some of the corporations have done to destroy workers, destroy families to bust unions makes the mafia look honorable. What I see now is people who apparently hate themselves, think they don't deserve having safe working conditions or a decent job. Think that the masta should always make a profit on the backs of others, because, hey, they're so deserving and talented. Little do they know, that most creativity has been stolen from others and like leeches, they make profit even off the deaths of their employees. I am not talking all businesses, but they're are many influencing politics today who are true vampires.
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howaboutme Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Nov-02-10 11:36 PM
Response to Original message
21. Too bad Obama listened to Wall St, on card check
and likes of Goldman Sachs, and the rich greedy billionaire bastards like Home Depot's Bernie Marcus http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/11/19/home-depot-founder-retail_n_144863.html

Passing card check would have done much more to eventually restore a labor political class in the USA and the subsequent ability to retain rights and benefits, than his spending a year passing a health care bill that many believe needs much improvement. A public single payer system that covered everyone would have done so much more to create an entrepreneurial class that is not tethered to employers.
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