Whispers of a card check compromise?

[Enrique]

http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/03/whispers_of_a_card_check_compromise.php

The folks at National Right to Work, of all people, are worried that, " early as next Tuesday, corporate executives with the bulk retailer Costco, the grocery store chain Whole Foods, Inc. and the coffee giant Starbucks appear ready to endorse a so-called "compromise version" of Big Labor's top legislative priority, the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill (H.R. 1409, S. 560)." I've been hearing rumblings of a compromise for a while now, but this is the first time specific companies have been identified. I am told that the compromise essentially opens the elections and arrays the thresholds for victory. For example: singing cards in public would require a 70% yes vote in order to form the union. Secret ballot elections would require 50% of the vote. And if the company was able to get the acquiescence of at least 30% of the workers, they'd have the right to organize the company in the future. An AFL-CIO spokesperson declined to comment, and representatives for the major business lobbies in town did not immediately respond to e-mails.My guess is that most of labor would be OK with this, and that that the companies who caved will suddenly get a lot of negotiating power. The Administration would like nothing more than to settle EFCA amicably, something that heretofore been impossible.

Mark Mix, president of National Right To Work Committee, said that "these huge companies are apparently willing to sell out hundreds of thousands of small ones under the guise of making some phony and misguided compromise with Big Labor."

[willing dwarf]

1. Gotta watch those singing cards!

Seriously though, this seems really obscure. Maybe you could write a little something to explain and give a context to what you're quoting?

[Enrique]

2. I assumed most people are following EFCA

if not, it's a very important pending bill which would make it easier for workers to form a union.

The business community is going all out to stop it, and the article in the OP says that they fear a rumored compromise because it will make passage more likely.

For background of course Wikipedia is excellent:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Free_Choice_Act

[willing dwarf]

3. Thanks for the back ground

Perhaps the way its been reported on NPR has made this story really obscure to me. I haven't been reading newspapers for a while so I'm a little out of touch. Besides, working at a small non profit, unions are still a foreign land for me. But being the wife of a carpenter, I've seen how workers are exploited, so I am completely pro worker, pro union.

[Political Heretic]

4. This is only one of the most important pieces of legislation of my lifetime....

... I am understandably a little queezy about a "compromise" - but I'll have to learn the details.

[CANDO]

5. A bill with a title like that is going nowhere fast.

eom

[madrchsod]

6. right wing bullshit

i will say there is not one shred of truth in that article.