The Employee Free Choice Act
Curious to see if anyone’s been following the Employee Free Choice Act that has been stirring up quite a bit of controversy as of late. Essentially, the goal is to make it easier for workers to form unions by doing away with the secret ballot — a system that was intended to protect workers from persecution when unionizing but has since been used by employers to quash unionization attempts.
I think it’s an especially interesting bill because it so closely skirts a line both sides are uncomfortable with. For the workers, do you give up the sacred secret ballot and risk bullying from organizers in hopes of better chances at unionizing? For employers, do you support the secret ballot that keeps you from weeding out potential organizers? What is more sacred: the power of workers to unionize or privacy and anonymity in the workplace? In either case, do the ends justify the means?
Rumor has it that corporate America is treating this bill like the potential end of the world as we know it and, as such, they’ve brought the propaganda machine out in full force as evidenced by this shill on Hardball. But both guys flat-out refuse to answer a single question with a straight answer and it takes what should be an honest discussion about unions or the ease of forming them and turns it into a circus.
So what do you guys think? Will this bill pass? Should it?
Comments
Doing away with the secret ballot definitely makes it easier for intimidation, which is big at the work place and among the unions.
If corporate America is so against this bill, then I’m thinking it’s in the best interests of the public.
I have mixed feelings on unions, though. I think they protect workers to some degree, but there’s a lot of corruption in unions themselves. For instance, I am currently in a union that doesn’t appear to be doing anything at all. They have been caught lying to the employees and are generally evasive about everything. From my understanding, most of our union reps have no more than a highschool education, have the right to take union dues out of our paycheck with no guarantee of results, and are representing people with advanced degrees. If you could get away with being paid with no need for results, how hard are you really gonna work for people that you probably think are being paid too much as it is?
Sara said:If corporate America is so against this bill, then I’m thinking it’s in the best interests of the public.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Matt, the problem with secret ballots currently is that while only 30% is required for action to take place, business will usually wait until 50% or 60% are showing because people generally have no idea how a vote is going.
Here’s the thing: The idea that we don’t need unions is based on a belief that corporate execs and board members will act in good faith and do everything they can to treat employees fairly and put the American economy and job market first. And I think that we all know how likely that is especially given recent events that have proven that to be unequivically not true.
And the idea that unions and pro-labor policies are bad for the economy is pretty much like the idea that tax cuts for the wealthy are good for the economy. We’ve just come off of a period of 8 years of pro tax cut, anti-union policies and labor judges at every turn and again, look how that turned out.
The ironic thing is that I think during the Clinton years, unions became less necessary because you have a government that was enacting more pro-worker policies and evening things out somewhat and keeping corporate malfeasance with regard to workers somewhat in check. So the government was doing what unions typically do in making sure that employees and workers rights were protected. And if that proves to the case with Obama’s policies then maybe we’ll get there again. But for now we need to roll back the loss of worker’s rights over the past 8 years and making it easier for labor to organize is necessary for that.
And yeah, unions aren’t perfect and there is corruption there. But given the percentage of numbers of leaders and positions of power compared to what you see at the top level of a corporation, it’s nothing.
And the fact is that if it weren’t for organized labor we wouldn’t have many of the rights we take for granted (40 hour work week, overtime pay, child labor laws, paid vacation, paid family leave).
It doesn’t do away with the secret ballot, it provides for the option between secret ballot and card check. Secret ballots are still perfectly acceptable.