Ohio Senator Brown: Card Check is Dead

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Hill newspaper has an interesting quote from Ohio Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown. He says the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), of the Card Check bill is a dead issue in the senate this year.

Senator Brown was being interviewed on WVIZ radio in Ohio when he was asked what he thought about the success of the EFCA in the Senate for the 112th Congressional session. “It’s not going to happen now,” the senator said.

If this is true then Big Labor should be extremely upset with President Obama and the Democrat leadership in congress. Will they take out their anger by withholding their enthusiastic support of Democrats in 2012?

One would think that this singular failure of the Democrats to get Big Labor’s most wished for legislation passed would be a deal breaker for labor. After all, labor has spent over $400 million in the last few years on getting Democrats elected and it seems that all that money went for no benefit to them. Labor’s loss of power has grown commensurately with its expenditure on Democrats, anyway.

Like old dogs that cant learn new tricks, though, it is likely that they will double down and try to pump more money than ever into the pockets of pliant Democrats. Like a beaten wife they keep coming back, it seems.
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Ohio Senator Brown: Card Check is Dead”


Secret Ballot Protection Wins Big in Four States

-By Warner Todd Huston

Is card check dead? Not completely, but if the recent votes on various state ballot initiatives of four states is any indication it sure seems to be on its last legs.

Little noticed by the Old Media, the ballot initiatives of these four states is an important bellwether of how little support Big Labor’s favorite law will have going forward. On November 2 four states voted by great margins to protect the secret ballot and these reasserted protections would tend to deliver a blow to one of the Democrat’s important provisions of card check, a provision that would eliminate the secret ballot for prospective union members.

Card check is one of the main parts of Big Labor’s Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The provision would eliminate a secret ballot for prospective union members as they decide on representation. Under the EFCA, votes for union representation would be an open issue. Every employee’s vote would be clearly known by all involved. This open voting (or the public checking of a vote card or ballot) would clearly leave employees open for harassment by union officials who would be fully aware of each employees individual votes, if they voted for or against the union. For that matter, even the employer would have knowledge of who voted for what under the EFCA.
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Secret Ballot Protection Wins Big in Four States”


As America Votes, Obama Angling to Take Vote Away From Workers

-By Warner Todd Huston

As Americans prepare to head to the polls to exercise their right to a secret ballot on election day, the Obama administration is poised to roll back that right in the workplace. By Obama’s orders, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is looking over a policy change that would undermine the protections for a worker’s right to a secret ballot vote in union elections in the workplace.

This elimination of a secret ballot is one of the policy changes that Big Labor has been pushing for several years now and is a chief component of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — better known as card check – a policy that Big Labor has been desperate to force Congress to pass.

Card Check would take away the right that workers have to a secret ballot when considering whether or not a union will be awarded representation at the workplace. This elimination of the secret ballot would leave workers open to the intimidation of union operatives who would be able to identify precisely which worker does and which worker does not support them. The secret ballot is one of the oldest, democratic rights in free and fair elections but unions want this right summarily taken away by federal order.
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As America Votes, Obama Angling to Take Vote Away From Workers”


AEI: More Unions Means Fewer Jobs

-By Warner Todd Huston

In April Lee Ohanian of the American Enterprise Institute published a paper on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that is a must read. But this month he published a shorter piece that is just as interesting. In it, Ohanian claims that if we increased unionism as the Obamaites want to do, we’d actually lose jobs; 4.5 million of them to be precise.

Obama has spent his entire year in office (hard to believe this much destruction only took a year) looking for ways to pay unions big dividends and despite that Congress has been dragging its feet on unions’ most cherished legislative agenda, the EFCA, Obama has been bending over backwards for them (as we discussed here).
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AEI: More Unions Means Fewer Jobs”


Sen. Harkin Promises Return to Card Check

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Hill is reporting that Iowa’s leading Democrat, Senator Tom Harkin, is promising that the lame-duck Senate will again take up Big Labor’s favored Employee Free Choice Act, (EFCA), the famous card check act that is neither good for employees nor one that facilitates “free choice” of any kind.

Apparently, what’s bad for the nation is easier to push when Democrats already feel that the 2010 election will erase their giant majorities in Congress so they want to launch a last ditch effort to sneak this through before the people can speak at the ballot box.

And isn’t that just the thing, here? The people did speak in 2006 and 2008, after all. They spoke in favor of Democrats. Yet, even with all that support Harkin and his far left cronies couldn’t lead their overwhelming majority to pass the jobs killing bill. Even their fellow Democrats were against it because they knew the voters stood against it.
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Sen. Harkin Promises Return to Card Check”


A Couple of Union Stories in the News

-By Warner Todd Huston

Three interesting stories on unions have hit the media this week that should be watched.

#1- Bush’s Union Transparency Rules Retracted Under Obama

The Washington Times reports that Obama is still giving favors and pay back to Big Labor. This time Obama is eliminating the transparency rules that Bush had put in to try to keep unions honest and legal. Saddly, Obama doesn’t care much if unions are held to the rule of law.
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A Couple of Union Stories in the News”


‘Restoring’ Unions ‘Right’ to Bargain Collectively

-By Warner Todd Huston

Not long ago union advocate Stewart Acuff penned a piece for the Huffington website that was filled with soaring rhetoric about unions “creating the middle class” and pleading for voters to pressure Congress to pass the absurdly named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). He claimed that this piece of… legislation would “restore the right to form unions and bargain collectively.”

Despite Acuff’s urgent pleading, however, he misses an elephant in the room. No one has taken anyone’s “right to collectively bargain” away from them. Of course that wasn’t the only thing that Acuff was factually incorrect about.

Why is it that union folks have to lie about everything, anyway?

Acuff starts out with a whopper.
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‘Restoring’ Unions ‘Right’ to Bargain Collectively”


AP: Unions Stymied Under Obama?

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Associated Press posted a story lamenting that Big Labor has failed so far to get Obama to heel by their commands. Big Labor has said “jump” and Obama has but skipped. The article is correct, though, that Big Labor has failed in its two biggest goals: socialist healthcare and card check. At least, they’ve failed so far.

A third failure has also been forced upon Big Labor. As a result of newly seated Republican Senator Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, Big Labor was not able to install Craig Becker as the head of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Becker was Big Labor’s back up plan in case Congress didn’t pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), or the card check bill. Being a former Big Labor lawyer and activist, labor groups expected that if installed as NLRB chief Becker would change rules, alter processes, and invent systems that would implement card check through the back door instead of through actual legislation.
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AP: Unions Stymied Under Obama?”


Right To Work Prez Calls Out Newt’s Hypocrisy

-By Warner Todd Huston

National Right to Work President Mark Mix is calling on Newt Gingrich to rescind his endorsement of Dede Scozzafava, the liberal candidate chosen by New York’s GOP powermen for the special election for the 23rd District Congressional seat. The reason? Scozzafava is a supporter of the Employee Free Choice Act and Newt has said he isn’t.

Liberal Republican Scozzafava has announced her support of the EFCA and its card check feature, a bill that will give unions a free hand to intimidate workers during the election period for voting on union representation. On the other hand, Newt Gingrich is in such opposition to card check that he once sponsored a petition against the EFCA.

Back in March, Gingrich created a video for American Solutions decrying card check and informing the viewers that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost with card check. Newt strongly supported the American Solution petition drive titled Freedom Not Fear drive.
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Right To Work Prez Calls Out Newt’s Hypocrisy”


Obama’s Pledge to Help SEIU ‘Turn The Nation Purple’

-By Warner Todd Huston

If you want to know how “connected” the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is to the White House, a video of then candidate Obama’s appearance at an SEIU campaign rally event is revealing. Obama revealed his intimate connection to the SEIU (from even before he ran for office) and promised to “turn the nation purple,” in an allusion to the SEIU’s corporate color scheme.

This is how close President Obama is to the SEIU and how engaged SEIU Local 880 is in politics in Illinois.

Join us and Say NO to ACORN.

Sign the petition and tell Governor Quinn that you want a real investigation to end corruption for good.
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Obama’s Pledge to Help SEIU ‘Turn The Nation Purple’”


Economic Freedom Alliance Targets EFCA

-By Warner Todd Huston

A rather new group called the Economic Freedom Alliance (economicfreedomalliance.org) is now taking on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) by erecting billboards to target five key Democrat congressmen in hopes of getting their constituents to urge them to drop support of the EFCA.

In one section of Illinois, for instance, the billboards say simply “DoNotLetBillFosterKillJobs.com.” Bill Foster is a Democratic Representative from south west of Chicago who now holds the seat that Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert once occupied.

Other Democrats that the billboards are targeting elsewhere in the country are Democrat Representatives Debbie Halvorson (Ill.) and Ike Skelton (Missouri), as well as Democratic Senators Evan Bayh (Indiana) and Claire McCaskill (Missouri).
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Economic Freedom Alliance Targets EFCA”


Is Union Favored Legislation ‘Racist’?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Professor Harry G. Hutchison of George Mason University recently took a look at the union favored Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and made a startling conclusion. He believes it will harm minorities.

Saying that the EFCA is “arguably the most transformative piece of labor legislation” since 1935, Hutchinson warns that it will seriously harm the rights of workers and the status of minorities alike.

To start, Hutchinson summed up the provisions of the bill.

One of the newest attempts to transform labor relations is the EFCA. The first to disappear under the EFCA would be a system of union democracy whereby unions could only obtain the rights of exclusive representation for firms if they could prevail in a secret-ballot election. Second, the EFCA would eliminate the necessity of a freely negotiated collective bargaining agreement between management and labor and instead substitute compulsory arbitration.

The results of these provisions, though, would prove disastrous as far as Hutchinson is concerned.
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Is Union Favored Legislation ‘Racist’?”


Governator Vetoes Union Bill Again

-By Warner Todd Huston

The United Farm Workers union wants to enshrine in law a new way for potential members to vote in representation. For years now, the UFW has tried to push Sacramento to OK a plan to allow potential union members to cast their vote away from their workplace.

The union claims that if union representatives can visit possible members at their homes to gather their vote it will prevent farm owners from “intimidating” their workers out of casting a yes vote.

But, the truth is that this will give the union representatives full reign to themselves be the intimidators. Not only that, but if union reps can go to voter’s homes to gather votes there won’t be anyone to guarantee whether those union reps were intimidating the voters or not. It’ll just be the worker and the union rep who will know for sure. Not only that but this bill will effectually eliminate the worker’s secret ballot and voter privacy.

Fortunately for the integrity of workers Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed this abomination… again.

Good for the Governator.
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Governator Vetoes Union Bill Again”