Controversial Employee Free Choice Act Rears Head in McDonald’s Row

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/politics/2008/December/Controversial-Employee-Free-Choice-Act-Rears-Head-in-McDonald-s-Row.html


Ron Edmonds/AP
Union members march to the White House.

January 01, 2009 04:28 PM
by Josh Katz
Union activists are fighting McDonald’s over the company’s opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act, which will likely remain a hot-button topic in the new congress.

Snip:
Background: Unions and employers battle over EFCA
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce opposes the EFCA, and says it will spend $10 billion in lobbying to fight it. But the bill’s supporters might have the edge when President-elect Barack Obama takes office. Obama has backed the act, and his future Labor secretary, Rep. Hilda L. Solis, called it “vital legislation,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

However, the U.S. Senate was and remains the main obstacle to the bill. A Republican filibuster defeated it last year even though it glided through the House. Also, Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at UC Santa Barbara, said it might be difficult for Obama to take on the legislation early on in his presidency.

“It’s a rallying point for Republicans,” he said, “and a wedge issue for some Democrats.”

“The American public supports the secret ballot,” argues Randy Johnson, a vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “Card checks are subject to abuse.”

Labor leaders have said that the secret ballot is detrimental because “employers use the time leading up to the vote to harass, fire and threaten workers,” according to the Los Angeles Times. Union officials also claim that an employer can unnecessarily extend the period of contract negotiations following union approval through an election, and possibly have the union decertified.

The act would also increase the punishment against employers who break the labor law. Opponents of the bill contend that it unfairly ups the penalty against the employers while not doing so against unions, even though 6,000 of the “more than 22,000 unfair-labor-practice charges filed with the NLRB in fiscal 2007” were attributed to unions. The use of restraint and coercion by unions accounted for most of the charges.

But the passage of the bill would most likely result in increased union membership, and union membership has dropped significantly in recent years, “from a high of 35% of the U.S. workforce down to 12% today,” according to the Los Angeles Times.


FULL article at link.

[baldguy]

1. Why "Controversial"?

Because it's fair?

[know_your_enemy]

2. I know, right?

EOM