A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor (reasons to distrust or resent the Democratic Party)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.counterpunch.org/macaray02282008.html

Can the Employee Free Choice Act Change the Landscape?
A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor

By DAVID MACARAY

Unions don't have to search very hard for reasons to distrust or resent the Democratic Party. For openers, they can go back to 1947, when the crippling, anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act was passed, with the help of congressional Democrats, over President Truman's veto. Historians and Party apologists can quibble all they like over why it happened, but the undeniable fact remains that, without the Democrats' assistance, Truman's veto couldn't have been overridden.

Or they can revisit 1978, when the Democrats had control of all three political arms of the government (the White House, Senate and House of Representatives), when, despite enormous pressure from the labor lobby, the Party refused to overhaul the Taft-Hartley Act. With power firmly in their hands, and the stars in alignment, it was a golden opportunity to fix something that badly needed fixing. Instead, they chose not to act.

In fact, 1978 was a bad year all the way around. Not only were legislative opportunities frittered away, but 1978 was the same year that President Carter invoked Taft-Hartley's "emergency powers" provision to crush the United Mine Workers' (UMW) national coal strike. There haven't been many occasions where a president has invoked Taft-Hartley to quell a strike. That it was a Democrat who did it, and that it was done with a Democratic House and Senate watching his back, made it that much more painful.

Or, more recently, they can look to NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), which went into effect on January 1, 1994. Despite virtually every union in the United States being opposed to it, President Clinton ignored their objections and warnings, and pressed forward with it, insisting that this bogus, turbo-capitalist, job-killing arrangement was the most lustrous jewel in his economic crown. If organized labor needed a reason to believe that the Democrats had not only abandoned them, but insulted them-humiliated them-NAFTA was it.

These disappointments (and many others) aside, there is currently a piece of legislation pending before congress that could be of great benefit to organized labor. And, notably, it was introduced by a Democrat (George Miller-D-CA). It's called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Given its potential for altering the national landscape, this could be a landmark piece of legislation.

Should the EFCA become law, employees would be permitted to join a union without having to go through the hassle of sanctioning an NLRB election; all they'd be required to do is sign cards indicating that they wish to join (known as the "card check" method). If a majority signs such cards, the NLRB would be authorized to recognize the union as the employees' exclusive representative in the collective bargaining process. Simple as that.

FULL story at link.

[Vincardog]

1. Do you think the REpigLICKERS are a better fit for Union?

[Omaha Steve]

2. Oh no, never again!

But the article shows how the party crapped on one of it's best segments.

[Vincardog]

3. Which is why we have to take our party back. We have to kick the corporatists to the curb along with

their neoconster friends