LaborPains.org

Jon’s post yesterday reminded me of a great article on the physical proximity of teachers union headquarters to state capital buildings.

The American reports:

Of the 25 most influential interest groups, the teachers’ union is the closest to the capitol in 14 of the 50 states.

Sunday’s Newark Star-Ledger brings word that a city high school principal has been warned by the school district after he sent out a memo on district letterhead asking employees to buy tickets to a political fundraiser. But the real story is the reaction from Newark Teachers Union President Joseph Del Grosso, who supplied this amazing quote: “There is not supposed to be politics involved in public schools.”

A few more of the NTU’s own words, on the website of its Committee on Political Education: “Make no mistake about it, our political successes gives us a strong voice in educational decisions throughout the state and district.” More: “This year, NTU COPE expects to be very active in registering voters, as well as supporting candidates in New Jersey’s statewide legislative races. NTU COPE will also organize membership around legislative referenda related to school vouchers, school financing, pension issues, and the ability of the union members to maximize their political voice.” (HT: Mike Antonucci)

In case it’s not already clear that the NTU cares deeply about keeping politics out of public schools (as deeply as it cares about getting rid of bad teachers), The Daily Newarker blog has more, with a scan of a particularly nasty political mailer the union recently sent out attacking the city’s mayor.

We’re spreading the word about Al Franken’s effort to deny workers their private ballot rights.  We are further raising the stakes on a critically important issue facing Minnesotans and all Americans: the loss of our democratic rights in the workplace. 

In an OpEd this week in Minnesota, we wrote:

Al Franken, supposed champion of the little guy, is supporting the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act, which takes away the private ballot from employees voting on whether or not they want to unionize their workplace. Harassment and intimidation will replace the integrity and freedom of conscience that comes with the private ballot.

Seldom is an issue as clear cut and simple as the union bosses attempt to take away the private ballot right of workers voting in a union organizing election.  That’s why 95% of Minnesotans support their private ballot.

In joining the effort to take away our basic rights, Al Franken is playing with fire.  We won’t let him hide his record from Minnesotans.

In the escalating debate regarding the deceptively-named Employee Free Choice Act, much-deserved attention is paid to labor bosses’ ploy to take away workers’ rights to a private ballot in unionization votes. What is often forgotten is that EFCA has the potential to rob workers of an additional private ballot vote. Under EFCA, if a contract cannot be agreed upon within 120 days the matter goes to binding arbitration. The arbitrator’s decision is binding on the company and its workers for 3 years—without the contract ratification vote usually granted to workers. Marc Freedman points out in his article on chamberpost.com:

So favorable is the binding arbitration process to the union position that union negotiators should be expected to drag out the process intentionally to get the matter into arbitration.

A federal judge has ruled that 150 chicken plant production line workers, who are members of the United Food and Commercial Workers and International Brotherhood of Teamsters, can sue their employer for time spent changing their clothes because their collective bargaining agreement wasn’t specific enough:

At bottom, defendant posits an overly expansive definition of ‘clothes’ that does not distinguish between everyday clothing and personal protective gear,” Judge Andre M. Davis wrote.

Union bosses and their lackeys in Congress cling to the faulty notion that the dramatic declines in union membership are the result of employeer intimidation. Right.

Setting aside all the companies put under by union-driven labor costs, labor bosses refuse to recognize that many employees have no need for a union. After all, this isn’t the 1930s: the vast majority of businesses recognize that engaging employees is central to their success.

The trouble is that the National Labor Relations Act prohibits employers from creating effective employee involvement programs. The prohibition is an outmoded outgrowth of the attempt to prevent both employers and employees from creating “company unions,” but Heritage Foundation researcher James Sherk thinks Congress should reconsider the prohibition. He writes:

Current law forces workers to make an all-or-nothing choice between no voice at work and speaking through a labor union, but the economy has changed since the 1930s, and many workers do not want the adversarial labor relations that unions offer. As a result, union membership has fallen. Rather than deprive workers of the right to choose to join a union in privacy, Congress should give employees free choice about how to express themselves in the workplace.

Congress should modify the National Labor Relations Act to define a labor organization as an organization that negotiates collectively bargained contracts with workers. If Congress did so, the NLRA ban on employer-dominated labor organizations would continue to ban company unions used to defeat organizing drives but would allow workers to choose to work with their employers through employee involvement programs and work councils.

There is more evidence today that the Supreme Court might be the last line of defense against the the deceptively-named Employee Free Choice Act. Harold Coxson, a management attorney with Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart in Washington, D.C., argues that EFCA potentially violates the Takings Clause of the Constitution and that the legislation contradicts long-standing Supreme Court precedent:

This provision would violate the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in H.K. Porter Co. v. NLRB, 397 U.S. 99, 73 LRRM 2561 (1970), Coxson said. In that decision, the court held that NLRB did not have the power to compel an employer or union to agree to any substantive contractual provisions of a collective bargaining agreement.

Coxson also provided evidence from Canada that EFCA-like labor laws do not expedite labor dispute negotiations:

Coxson said provisions of labor law in Quebec, Canada, are similar to those in the proposed EFCA and that on average it takes 290 days from the time a first contract dispute is referred to arbitration until there is a decision. Contending that this does not address the concerns of delay in negotiating a first contract, Coxson quipped, “That is hardly time saving.”

I came across two great letters to the editor in Colorado this week holding Democratic Senate candidate Mark Udall accountable for his unconscionable support of the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act.

Mark Davidson wrote in today’s Denver Post:

There has been nothing coy about Democratic candidates’ courtship of big labor this election year. Colorado’s own senatorial candidate, Congressman Mark Udall, has been one of the leading suitors.

And why wouldn’t Udall and other Democrats support union leaders when they are estimated to spend millions of dollars on political campaigns this election cycle? Of course, union chiefs are making sure their political puppets give them something in return and this year they’re after support for the deceptively named federal Employee Free Choice Act.

Currently, our laws allow employees a private-ballot election when deciding whether to unionize. But EFCA would ban elections and replace them with an easily corruptible and public method called “card check.” If card check becomes law, workers will lose their right to privacy while crooked union bosses will get more dues dollars from hard-working Americans.

That’s a bad deal, and Mark Udall should be ashamed for supporting it.

And Lois Dunn wrote in the Grand Junction Sentinel:

How unfortunate is it that the Democratic Party has decided to overlook the best interests of working-class voters and eliminate democracy in the workplace?

Virtually every Democratic candidate this year, including Mark Udall and Barack Obama, are pushing for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which is a massive handout to organized labor. EFCA would eliminate the private-ballot vote when unionizing a workplace and put in place a system where workers could be intimidated and pressured into signing petitions for unionization.

This system would allow union-membership — and thus union revenue from dues dollars — to soar nationwide. Those dues dollars would be funneled right back into the campaigns of the unions’ Democratic supporters.

Udall should join the 87 percent of Americans who oppose this legislation and support supervised private ballot elections instead of pandering to his union funders.