The Coming Fight Over EFCA

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Coming-Fight-Over-...

It’s estimated 86,000 workers got fired trying to exercise their legal right to organize a union during the Bush years and signs are Corporate American will fight to keep things that way.

“We like driving the car,” Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott says, “and we’re not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us.” (Or share-the-ride with their hires.)

Until now, the surest way to lose your job or get sent to vocational Siberia at outfits like Wal-Mart has been to urge your co-workers to organize. No matter the UN Declaration of Human Rights Article 23 states “Everyone has the right to form and join trade unions...”

Scott and others are girding for a fight to stop the Employee Free Choice Act(EFCA) that would allow employees to unionize if a majority sign membership cards. It’s a much simpler method than staging company-wide elections by secret ballot. EFCA would also stiffen penalties for intimidating or firing union supporters and impose arbitration when a firm won’t bargain.


MORE at the link above --

[ogneopasno]

1. I'm looking forward to getting EFCA passed. This would level the playing field for labor and would

help many, many American workers.

[bluestateguy]

2. "EFCA would also stiffen penalties for intimidating or firing union supporters"

In some ways I consider that the most important provision of the law.

This is what I worry about:

An effort is made to unionize by card check; it fails to clear 50%, so a secret ballot is then held. It too fails.

Now all the people who signed the card check are public and exposed, and I worry about recriminations which lead to those people being fired or demoted.