Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)

NLRB Approves Pro-Union "Ambush Election" Final Rule

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Thu, 12/22/2011 - 20:08

NLRB logo If the Democratic-majority National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) under the Obama administration has become a de facto union law firm, then its proposed rule mandating "fast-track" or "ambush" elections loomed as its crowning achievement. Two days ago, on Tuesday, December 20, that proposal became final. By a 2-to-1 margin, the board approved a regulation it had unveiled this June ostensibly to speed up union representation election campaigns and avoid frivolous litigation.

Sen. Hatch Unveils Employee Rights Act to Reform Labor Law

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Thu, 09/08/2011 - 17:12

Hatch photo It's been more than 50 years since Congress passed a major piece of legislation to curb union privileges. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah (see photo), thinks that's far too long. On August 2, Sen. Hatch, a member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, along with freshman Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., introduced a far-reaching reform bill, the Employee Rights Act (H.R. 2810, S. 1507), to align labor law with emerging workplace realities of a market economy. The bill would shield individual workers from the arbitrary power of union leaders, long accustomed to equating their own interests with those of American workers as a whole. Hatch admitted that passage won't be easy. "I fully expect the unions and their supporters to come out against to Employee Rights Act, and characterize it as a radical, anti-union bill."

NLRB Rule Would Burden Employers with Fast-Track Union Elections

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Tue, 06/28/2011 - 11:52

Trumka photo Union leaders, frustrated over their inability to sway Congress, more than ever are relying upon the National Labor Relations Board to enact stealth legislation. The board, now with a Democratic majority, seems willing to oblige them. Case in point: an NLRB proposal announced last Tuesday, June 21, and published in the Federal Register the next day, to substantially reduce the duration of election campaigns for union representation. While the board touts the regulation as an overdue streamlining of an inefficient system, its covert motive, say critics, is to hamstring employer opposition.

NLRB Opens Door to Stealth Card Check Despite Becker's Conflict of Interest

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Thu, 09/16/2010 - 18:44

Becker photo In placing radical union lawyer Craig Becker on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) via recess appointment this past March, President Obama may have unleashed a more potent weapon to advance organized labor's interests than even he realized at the time. In a 3-2 decision on August 27, the board voted to review its ruling of three years ago, Dana Corporation [351 NLRB No. 28 (2007)], which granted dissenting workers the right to undo a successful (i.e., employer-recognized) union card check campaign. The board thus has given unions new ammunition for realizing its top priority of forcing, and not simply authorizing, employers to recognize majority-vote union card check campaigns under the guise of "employee choice." A separate but related issue is why Becker was allowed to cast a vote at all, given his conflict of interest in the case.

Employee Free Choice Act Is Coercive Even Without Card Check

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Wed, 07/22/2009 - 17:57

Miller and Harkin support EFCA The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), as Union Corruption Update has noted repeatedly, is a misnamed piece of federal legislation. Its sole ulterior purpose is an expansion of union power at the expense of dissenting employees and employers. And despite the fact that supporters appear willing to strip the measure of its highly controversial "card check" component, the bill (H.R. 1409, S. 560) remains coercive in intent. That's because its less-heralded binding arbitration provision remains. And arbitration, as supporters envision things, would authorize the federal government to write (or rewrite) employment contracts from scratch.

Obama Election, Mob Prosecutions, Tougher Rules Led Way

Submitted by Carl Horowitz on Mon, 01/12/2009 - 01:00

The year 2008 will be remembered most of all for the $7 trillion in stock market assets that evaporated. The losses were a consequence of the widespread attitude among Wall Street money managers that debt-fueled growth has no limits or negative consequences. The equivalent view among union leaders is that institutional growth must come at any cost, whether to the unions themselves, employers or the country as a whole. Only 7.5 percent of the nation’s private-sector work force now belongs to a union. Labor officials are convinced that with the right laws and programs in place, that figure could double, even triple. Everyone supposedly would win, save for certain "greedy" employers and ideologues hostile to the interests of working families.