Labor’s Agenda Set to Move to the Front Burner

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.workforce.com/section/03/feature/26/90/39/index_printer.html

Once Congress is done wrestling with health care reform, it is expected to turn its attention to the Employee Free Choice Act. And although the act has been dormant for months, organized labor’s priorities are sprouting in Washington in other ways. Here are the labor-relations issues employers need to watch in the new year.
By Mark Schoeff Jr. s soon as Congress has finished work on health care reform, perhaps as soon as this month, the Employee Free Choice Act—labor’s darling and business’s bête noir—is poised to reappear on the legislative agenda, according to lobbyists on both sides who have been battling fiercely over the measure.

The bill stalled after its March introduction, and will likely be revised before hitting the Senate floor. The original version would allow bargaining units to form when a majority of workers sign cards authorizing them.

Moderate Senate Democrats expressed reservations about the provision, which opponents assert would effectively eliminate secret-ballot votes. A compromise would probably provide for accelerated union election timetables.

Although the act has been dormant for months, organized labor’s priorities are sprouting in other ways—primarily through executive orders and the regulatory process.

Shortly after his inauguration, President Barack Obama signed an executive order requiring federal contractors to inform employees that they have a right to organize—one of three orders that promoted unionization among contractors.

More recently, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis announced the agency’s 2010 regulatory framework, a list of 90 proposed rules designed in large part to increase safety and wage enforcement and to “ensure that workers have a voice in the workplace,” according to a Department of Labor statement.

While Capitol Hill and the Obama administration pursue labor-friendly policies, some companies are trying to pre-empt union gains in their operations in anticipation that the Employee Free Choice Act might be approved. Other employers, experts say, seem oblivious to the changes brewing in Washington.

They will get a rude jolt if the act emerges in the Senate once health care reform is finished, as business groups and unions predict.

“We’re likely to see a showdown on this issue early in 2010,” says Steven Law, chief legal officer at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “We’ll show up with a massive effort to counter that legislation.”

FULL story and other stories at link.

[rockymountaindem]

1. Good luck n/t

[madfloridian]

2. Just not teachers' unions.

They are on the back burner being pushed off the stage.

There are no labor friendly policies about teachers.

[Brickbat]

3. Of course, we were told labor would move to the forefront if we'd get 60 senators, and the House,

and the White House, and oh, Labor, can we PLEASE use your membership's shoe leather to get out the word about our candidates and GOTV, and thank you SO much for your donations, absolutely we'll get that EFCA passed with the Senate and House and White House, it'll be great! Thanks, Labor!

Sorry, OS, not directed at you. I hate being cynical about something I love.