DescentBB

“Card Check” is proposed legislation making it easier for unions to organize in the workplace.

Employee Free Choice Act at Congresspedia

bill text of S. 842
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtex ... l=s109-842

SEC. 2. STREAMLINING UNION CERTIFICATION.

(a) In General- Section 9(c) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. 159(c)) is amended by adding at the end the following:

`(6) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, whenever a petition shall have been filed by an employee or group of employees or any individual or labor organization acting in their behalf alleging that a majority of employees in a unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining wish to be represented by an individual or labor organization for such purposes, the Board shall investigate the petition. If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bargaining representative and that no other individual or labor organization is currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative described in subsection (a).

(emphasis mine)


Hey, even George McGovern thinks this is a bad idea.

McGovern op-ed in August
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1218155 ... mmentaries

(link from Article at Hot Air -
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/10/15/v ... ard-check/ )



I just don’t see that there is any defense for this proposition. A secret ballot election protects employees from both management and union intimidation.

Here’s a couple of for and against articles from a similar state measure in Hawai’i
For
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/0 ... tary3.html

Against
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/0 ... ial01.html

I am unable to verify any of the statistics in Abercrombie’s “For” article, as he does not give a specific reference. If employers are violating the law as frequently as he claims, why don’t we just beef up the enforcement of existing labor laws. It seems the EFCA proposal just opens up a whole new can of potential opportunities for abuse.

So, can anyone convince me as to why \"Card Check\" is not a very bad idea?

dissent wrote:...
So, can anyone convince me as to why "Card Check" is not a very bad idea?

If the vote is done in secret the worker can speak freely, if the vote is publicized he is open to manipulation by thugs on either side. So, no, I can't.

This kind of thing does not address the reason unions are in decline in the first place. Hijacking companies into unionizing will only mean less jobs.

Yea, lets ignore the economic realities and open a back door to unionizing, I’m sure that will help wages and benefits…for the people “left” with jobs.

Hey, and lets not stop there, why don’t we require companies to provide their employees with health insurance…then we can all live in a utopia!

What a lot of people forget is that unions are big business. Unions aren't in business to \"protect workers rights\" whatever those are. They are in business to make money.

If I were king, I would ban them.

Dedman wrote:What a lot of people forget is that unions are big business. Unions aren't in business to "protect workers rights" whatever those are. They are in business to make money.

If I were king, I would ban them.

Gotta agree with this. They started out really good until they figured out how much money can be made playing both sides of the fence. Which turned it into a cash cow just like our prison system and legal system.

Do you guys know who is the big money spender AGAINST the Employee Free Choice Act? Surprise, WALMART! Why? because they don't want their employees to unionize, get a living wage and health benefits.

When I worked as a mechanic in the late 1970's, our group of mechanics voted to unionize the shop. All these guys wanted was a fair living wage to raise their families. We got only a fraction of the hourly shop rate that was charged to the customer. Originally we got 50% of the hourly shop rate, but over time, he would raise the hourly shop rate to the customer, but the percentage we were paid kept going down. When the guys couldn't get satisfaction from the employer, we decided to vote for joining the IAW. To start the process, we just signed a card. Well, we ALL signed cards to join the union, unanimously. What happened after the signing was the shop owner then was able to legally stall and stall, preventing ANY bargaining, before demanding the full vote be carried out. We eventually went to a full private vote, but alas, the shop owner was still able to use delay tactics, intimidation, nonrecognition of the union and refusal to bargain. The law favored the employer and still does.

http://dpc.senate.gov/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=lb-110-1-97

We can all slam unions for being greedy pigs and it's true that they got fat, lazy and powerful, abandoning their original charter and not changing with the times. But we're forgetting that unions were started to protect workers from abuse, dangerous and unhealthy working conditions and near slave wages. Funny how history is forgotten over time. What's sad is that today's workers are now working for less, with no pensions or even health care benefits anymore.

6-7 years ago my shop workers decided they wanted to unionize. National Labor Relations sent me a notice to that effect and hence I could not fire them. However 30 days later I laid them off due to lack of work and never called them back. While NLR rules say I cannot fire them, there is no rule about laying them off.

Also as I recall a lot of stores like K-Mart, when you went to work for them you automatically had to join the union. At any rate, open voting with some union goon watching you is not what America's about.

tunnelcat,
Your example is a good one. So even after the (private) vote, you are saying there were still problems. I'm not arguing that - as I said above, we can just beef up enforcement of existing labor laws if any there is illegal behavior from management side. The problem that I have with the so-called \"Free Choice\" act is that it potentially opens up a whole new regime for union intimidation and abuse by going around the NLRB mandated secret election provision. Fine, let's have a discussion around what labor law should be, but don't take away people's right to have a real free choice at a ballot box.

I wish somebody would pass a law that, employees need to show up everyday, on time, and not spend the entire day on their cell phones.

Spidey wrote:I wish somebody would pass a law that, employees need to show up everyday, on time, and not spend the entire day on their cell phones.

X2 ...seriously

There really needs to be a better set of laws that deals with unions and employers. The way the laws are now, if you try to unionize a nonunion workplace, the employer can really stonewall everything, even after all the voting is done, especially if it's a small shop.

The opposite problem is when you have entrenched unions in a company, they tend to be very resistant to change and are so coercive in enforcing their rigid work rules that it results in lazy employees and low productivity. The U.S. Post Office in my area is a good example of unions gone bad, lousy service and bad attitudes.

But if we didn't have unions, we'd be back to workplace conditions before the 1930's, dangerous, monotonous, low paying and a near servitude to the employer. All I know is that all the guys in my shop, including me, worked a hard eight hours a day for essentially diminishing pay. That bred resentment for the employer, which further soured attitudes. Even though we succeeded in unionizing, no results came of it. Eventually, most of the guys quit and moved on to other better paying jobs. Not the kind of employee turnover you want for any loyal customers to your business.

I agree that the Free Choice Act just gives the unions what they want with more power, and not in a productive way to employers. But the opposite problem is abuse of employees in the form of low pay, long hours, no retirement options or health care. Each side is abusing their powers for some kind of profit. Maybe unions will have to die before a fundamental change happens. In the meantime, if you are a young unskilled worker, or even someone with skills like carpentry, or auto repair, be prepared to work for little pay, no pension and no health care benefits at all.

I wonder what will finally change this adversarial status quo that unions and employers are stuck in, so that this country can still have a large, prosperous middle class with plenty of good paying jobs?

That’s just not true tc, we have plenty of laws on the books protecting employees, that do not take a union to enforce…such as the 40 hour work week, overtime pay, vacation, breaks and the minimum wage, to name just a few. And of course there are all the other laws like the child labor laws, OSHA…etc. That also need no union to enforce.

If you are worth your salt, say as a mechanic, and you can’t make a living wage…..get another job!

As far as your last question…it’s too late that dog won’t hunt.

Oh, and here is my question…Why should your employer pay for your health costs? And just how can you justify every socialist program coming down the pike being implemented thru business? And I don’t want the Jessie James reason, I’m talking morally.

Spidey, Tunnelcat...

Would I be correct in assuming you are primarily an employer and primarily an employee, respectively?

(I ask, because it would explain a lot about your relative positions on this matter.)

As for health costs, I don't think employers should be mandated to pay. However, if a company wants to be competitive from the stand point of attracting quality employees, they would do well to offer some kind of health care. That is the free market place at work. It's a beautiful thing.

“Self Employment” just means you get to have more employers than just one.

No, it doesn’t Foil, my views have changed very little, from the time I worked for the man.

Foil wrote:Spidey, Tunnelcat...

Would I be correct in assuming you are primarily an employer and primarily an employee, respectively?

(I ask, because it would explain a lot about your relative positions on this matter.)

Employee, only a temporary job for me when I was younger, thank God. I got a career as a Geologist, using my chosen college degree.

But I was lucky. The other employees were much older and stuck in the profession with little savings. They all had families to care for and in a small town, few options for change except to move. A lot of them are still not very well off today and should have retired long ago.

Unions may no longer be relevant since we've lost most of our manufacturing jobs overseas. Factory jobs will always be where unions are needed to protect workers from servitude. The problem on a mass scale was created in the 1800's with the Industrial Revolution and has now been moved offshore to exploit poor laborers in Third World Countries, all for cheap, crappy, shoddy goods for the U.S. market.

If you think U.S. Government laws will protect workers, there are ways around that hurdle, even in a U.S. Commonwealth.

http://www.commonplacebook.com/current_ ... s_and.shtm

We're slowly destroying the large middle class in this country that has made the U.S. a desirable country to live in, all for profit and cheap products.

Which raises a question, why do most consumer advocates preach this notion that we all have the right to cheap consumer products? And most of the advocates that I know of are liberals, is there a connection?

I just don’t understand why liberals try to protect unions on one hand, and then undermine them on the other. (actually I do understand)

The only solution to this problem is buying goods made in america, by people with high paying jobs, and stop being so cheap when you spend your money. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

People in this country want high wages when they work, but then want to spend the least when they buy labor. (goods)

We are doomed in this country, because the people that have the public forums, just lie like the dogs they are.

The truth is never going to be told on health care either.

Spidey wrote: People in this country want high wages when they work, but then want to spend the least when they buy labor.

I'm unable to come up with any human, or group of humans, which behaves contrary to this principle.

Spidey wrote:The only solution to this problem is buying goods made in america, by people with high paying jobs, and stop being so cheap when you spend your money. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

People in this country want high wages when they work, but then want to spend the least when they buy labor. (goods)

The truth is never going to be told on health care either.

When I shop, I always try to look for quality, not price, but that's even getting hard to do. I get damn tired of junk products that fall apart as soon as you use them. I don't understand the cheap Walmart mentality of Americans. Don't they realize that they're actually spending more in the long run to constantly replace the crap that broke they previously bought. On top of that, companies are now portion controlling, especially food, so now we are actually buying less crap for the same price.

But just try to buy solely U.S. made products. Just about everything says "made in China" on it. Now I'm finding stuff from the Philippines, Thailand, India, etc. Even the "made in U.S.A." stuff is junky now. #@$%#^*&!

Health care is a whole different ball game in the U.S. It's not even free market. In any other sector of the economy, when you want to purchase something, you usually know the price or cost of the product BEFORE you make the purchase. I dare you to try and find out what the price of any procedure, surgery, doctor fees or drug costs beforehand from most hospitals. Then there's even differences that people are charged depending on whether they have private insurance, Medicare or are just paying cash and FOR THE SAME THING! For those who are uninsured and have to pay cash, believe it or not, the price that hospitals or clinics charge for any given procedure is usually three times higher (or more) for that individual than what the insurance company pays. The individual has no bargaining power.

I'm going to be starting a thread on health care since I just broke myself badly (I'll post pictures even) right before Thanksgiving and I'm going to be going through an expensive medical journey in the next few months.

“I don't understand the cheap Walmart mentality of Americans. Don't they realize that they're actually spending more in the long run to constantly replace the crap that broke they previously bought.”

I’ve been trying to explain this to people for years. Well tc, I think we can finally agree on something.

BTW, hope things work out ok on that issue…

Spidey, another casualty of American 'cheapness' is the lessening ability to repair things. When I buy something, I'd like to be able to fix it myself when it breaks/wears out or get it repaired by someone else to keep my original investment. A lot of stuff is made now that you couldn't even get replacement parts for if you wanted to, let alone get the damn thing apart in the first place. Our landfills are full of broken items and products that couldn't be repaired. What a waste! We used to have a vibrant service industry to repair products in this country, now we just throw them out. Why have Americans started accepting this stupidity? Gads, even automobiles are getting that way now! Not very 'green' is it?

BTW Thanks.

Not to worry tc, in a few years excavating landfills will be providing jobs and resources.

tunnelcat wrote:Spidey, another casualty of American 'cheapness' is the lessening ability to repair things. When I buy something, I'd like to be able to fix it myself when it breaks/wears out or get it repaired by someone else to keep my original investment. A lot of stuff is made now that you couldn't even get replacement parts for if you wanted to, let alone get the damn thing apart in the first place. Our landfills are full of broken items and products that couldn't be repaired. What a waste! We used to have a vibrant service industry to repair products in this country, now we just throw them out. Why have Americans started accepting this stupidity? Gads, even automobiles are getting that way now! Not very 'green' is it?

BTW Thanks.

I've been repairing, renovating and recycling all kinds of crap since I was 7 and my Commodore 128's power supply went out. My dad wanted to throw it away, but I fixed it myself. I don't know what makes people so stupid and lazy that they can't even fix something as simple as a freaking chair nowadays.

Oh, and Spidey... you can find all kinds of awesome stuff at landfills. They're literally a gold mine, if you don't mind getting a little messy.

Sorry to hear you injured yourself TC. Hope you recover quickly.

tunnelcat wrote: I'm going to be starting a thread on health care since I just broke myself badly (I'll post pictures even) right before Thanksgiving and I'm going to be going through an expensive medical journey in the next few months.

This sounds ominous... Sorry to hear this. Hope you recover fully.

Hope you get better quickly TC.

Bee

Ah, unions! Today I learned of a lumber company in Racine, WI that has to close its doors after 99 years of business thanks to Teamsters union pension liabilties. Apparently, when a union pension fund does poorly and becomes underfunded, as can happen in a bad stock market, the liability (payment) gets split up among the companies with unionized employees. This company, which did nothing wrong and wasn't failing otherwise, has two union employees, for whom the liability is nearly $200,000. But if they are open even a minute into 2009, their liability for this pension fund, so toxic and poorly managed that it was put under government oversight 4 years ago, jumps to nearly double that. And even if these two employees wanted to deunionize, there's practically no way the liability can be waived. Since it can't afford that, the company will be officially out of biz on Dec. 20th, going into liquidation status, and 9 people will lose their jobs.

Also, I hear that foreign companies pay about $44/hour for labor at their American plants (~$26 + benefits), while in Detroit, thanks to unions, the hourly cost is $77. And the govt should bail them out?!

That hourly UAW WAGE of $77/hour is a myth that's been floating around the internet. Total cost per employee may be more with pensions and health care. But the real hourly wage is:

http://www.glgroup.com/News/UAW-wages-16820.html

http://www.uaw.org/barg/07fact/fact02.php

tunnelcat wrote:That hourly UAW WAGE of $77/hour is a myth that's been floating around the internet. Total cost per employee may be more with pensions and health care.

I said "cost".

tunnelcat wrote:That hourly UAW WAGE ...

Sedwick wrote:I said "cost".

Exactly.


C’mon, tc, let’s be real. The UAW cannot simply wave a wand and pretend that there are no costs other than the standard wage. What they are saying, in effect, is to “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”. But you cannot simply ignore the (1) health care and (2) retirement costs of the American automakers, because they are still reflected on the bottom lines of each of the companies.

From
http://www.heritage.org/research/econom ... .cfm#_ftn5
and information linked therein –

Most of the Big Three's UAW workers' compensation comes as benefits, not cash. Table 1 breaks down the average hourly labor costs for a UAW worker at Chrysler in 2006. Ford and General Motors have similar compensation profiles.

Only 38 percent of the $75.81 an hour that Chrysler's UAW workers earned came as base wages. The rest came as benefits (though some of those benefits, such as overtime premiums and paid vacation days, are paid in cash). Health care costs are the most expensive benefit, accounting for over a quarter of total compensation.

The Detroit automakers and the UAW have known about this competitive disadvantage for decades, but the UAW resisted making any concessions until 2007--when bankruptcy became an impending reality. …..

GM estimates the new contract will eventually cut 70 percent of their labor cost gap with the Japanese manufacturers.

See the contract details here


Look, there are a number of issues that have gotten the American automakers to where they are today. Decades ago these industries could afford to offer many of these benefits because there was less competition and they had more control over pricing decisions for their products. As new competition came on-line the American companies failed to take the steps necessary to compete on price and still turn a profit.

People will continue to quibble about these numbers. But I think this fellow gets it right –

I see two issues, somewhat interrelated, causing the differential between top-down and bottom-up estimates of Big Three labor costs.

First is the fact that the current cost of a car includes expenses related to retirees as well as to current employees. The top-down group sees no reason to exclude such costs and the bottom-up group sees no reason to include them.

Here the top-down group is absolutely correct and the bottom-up group is, quite frankly, simply wrong. The cash cost of a vehicle attributable to labor is, um, the cash cost of a vehicle attributable to labor. Whether the cash cost today goes to a worker today or instead includes an intergenerational element makes no difference — it is still a cash cost.

I said that the $77/hour WAGE is a myth. That's what's floating around. You're all correct that the COST per employee is the problem right now and that cost includes the overhead of retiree benefits, so I'm just pointing out semantics here and agreeing with your points.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200812030006?f=h_latest

But what would you guys DO with all those retirees (that seem to be the financial boat anchor for the automakers at the moment) that may now lose everything they worked for? Throw them under the bus or out into the street because their union and the automakers made expensive choices? Just curious.

But what would you guys DO with all those retirees (that seem to be the financial boat anchor for the automakers at the moment) that may now lose everything they worked for? Throw them under the bus or out into the street because their union and the automakers made expensive choices? Just curious.

In a word, yes. That is the way freedom works: you are free to succeed and free to fail, based on the merits of your choices.

dissent wrote:
See the contract details here

sounds to me like the contract here was designed to bring them cost competitive back into line; the problem is how do they bridge the next 2 to 4 years until they get there under this contract. More adjustments on both sides needed, but I don't think they necessarily have to bail on their prior obligations. It'll be very different going forward, however.

I heard the guy from Ford, just last night on the News Hour claim that labor is only 10% of a cars manufacturing cost.

If that is true, somebody has been blowing a huge smokescreen up our asses for a long time.