EFCA, Employee Free Choice Act

[nadinbrzezinski]

I know that for many 'round these parts Unions are like oh well who cares? In fact, the latest attack on labor is the fault of the teachers. Well if you are in that group... I recommend you listen up. Once all Unions are completely broken can you say hello to morning to night working hours? EFCA is critical for you, and there is more. Today while doing research I came across this very difficult to read article on one of them Academic Journals. (Yes I know some people who got PhD's use long sentences and chiefly convoluted, to explain things)

Well this article is on San Fran, and the Employee Signature Authorization Ordinance (ESAO). Now I will leave the whole discussion on how this works, legally that is. Or how it does not challenge the National Labor Relations Board... shall we say it is still in courts... anyhoo... this is functionally EFCA. So if you are into moments of geek, or how things can be done to increase your power in the working place... this is a very successful working experiment. It essentially allows labor to get a card check, without being harassed by the employers and it allows the employees to avoid the pickets. Everybody wins... and if you are wondering the talking points against it were the same. It will take the right of labor to have a private ballot.

In a city with very progressive values and a deep Union history, not surprisingly, has increased union membership...

Oh and if anybody wants to go read that article...

Here you go...

Miriam J. Wells
When Urban Policy Becomes Labor Policy: State Structures, Local Initiatives, and Union Representation at the Turn of the Century.
In the Journal of Theory and Society: Renewal and Critique in Social Theory
Pages 115-146
31/2002

I do love University Libraries, by the way...

Oh and some of the initial thesis, as it should happen... is kind of dying by the wayside. And for the record, I could stick to JUST history journals, but somebody else's POV can be fascinating, even if I wanted to cry... No, not the ideas, those are good, just the oh my god here is a copy of a STYLE manual...

There is another one that I have yet to finish. made photocopies of that one, on the end of the White Working Class, One of the two authors is Rudy Texeria, the author of the Coming Democratic Majority. He explains, in my view, the demise of unions in one of his early points. In 1940 most of the population DID NOT have a college degree, hell not a High School diploma. Today it is a MINORITY of people who don't have a college degree, and 23% still do manual work. Well, College kids don't want to be Union, and well Union Members many a times don't like them book fancy learning... so part of this is attitudinal. Trust me, they don't care if you got a fancy college degree and work white collar, or don't and work on the plant floor. So perhaps it is time to change some of our collective attitudes vis a vis labor. Of course he was also dealing with class and what makes a middle class... which is a thorny problem...

Anyhow, this is the way this is. Oh and one thing I do hate about the University, but this is the economic crisis. It used to be that as an alumni you got yourself an Alumni Card, paid some money at the Library and had almost unrestricted access to the library... not anymore. You can only take out five books a year... and quite brutally honest, I can say that is personnel based.

So I will be doing this the very old fashioned way... well save the Computer, instead of 3x5 back in the olden days...

Oh and the student body does look a little older, I guess lots of people are going back to school. And yes, I can still tell the bidnss students apart from the rest of the student body. Some things never change. While most kids (and not so young kids) wear jeans and T-Shirts, these guys and gals are wearing business wear... aka suits and ties. As I said, some things never, evah change.

Oh and on the free speech zone, well Green peace had it today, together with the Young Republicans. I made a POINT not to wear anything too fancy. So I had one of the Young Republicans come over with petition. Nice young man, clean cut, suit and tie... so I asked him if he was expecting to make millions in this globalized economy.

He gives me this blank stare and then said, I don't know what you mean, I invest in what dad says I have to.

We talked a little about Friedman, some real Adam Smith, again it is handy to have electronic copy and point out the anti trust feeling from Smith... kid was about to call Smith a damn commie, socialist, then he stopped himself, he prays at the church of the Free Market... so all that contradiction was something he was willing to accept, long live the hand of the market, and we all say Amen. Ah yes that cognitive dissonance and the prayers to Mammon...

He tells me that he WILL make it in-spite of dad. Apparently he and dad don't get too well and after he didn't do well at Harvard, well this public school is the end of the rope...

We talked a little more, so he asked me what I was doing? I told him what my little project is all about, and he was amazed that anybody would be interested in the working class. I mean they are just good for... well producing wealth. So I pointed out to him that he did need people to be able to buy his baubles and globalization was going to force some serious changes in how workers organized. I also told him, that in spite of the fact that I held a college degree, I was working class. That took him completely by surprise... like what? And a union household... that really took him into all kinds of shocked territory. I think I shook him a little.

Which brings me back to Texeira... by all statistics of income and education we are not working class, but we are in all other respects.

It would get complex why but that is the truth. But the article is all kinds of geekness and statistics...

(Oh and of course this does dot play well on GD)

[Omaha Steve]

1. K&R!