AFSCME 3090

(LA County Federation of Labor, June 3)

Hundreds of workers and community supporters held a rally outside of Senator Dianne Feinstein's L.A. office today urging her to support the Employee Free Choice Act, federal legislation that would help workers earn good wages, healthcare and retirement benefits by signing a card to join a union. Among the various organizations joining the workers  were the ACLU of Southern California, Courage Campaign, Sierra Club, Stonewall Young Democrats, Latino Equality Alliance and Member of the Board of Equalization, Judy Chu.

"We understand that Senator Feinstein had to vote to bail out the big banks in order to help President Obama stabilize the economy," said Maria Elena Durazo, Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO to a crowd of workers in front of Senator Feinstein's office. "We're not upset about that. We too want our economy to be healthy, but we also want it to work for ordinary working men and women. So unlike the banks, we are not asking for a bailout. We just want our nation's laws to be fair for real people. We'll bail ourselves out. We just need Senator Feinstein to help us make the process reasonable by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act."

For months, workers across the country have been fighting to help pass the Employee Free Choice Act. In L.A., workers have written more than 10,000 letters, made thousands and thousands of phone calls, organized delegations, marched, held vigils -- all in an effort to convince Senator Feinstein to support workers' right to organize for better pay and benefits.

"I love what I do. I feel that I lucked out and found my passion early in life," said Becky Sue Martinez, a Set Dresser and Props Assistant who was fighting to form a union at Larry Levinson Productions, a production company responsible for producing movies of the week for Hallmark and Lifetime television. She and her co-workers went on strike after the company refused to grant them union recognition. "We shouldn't have to choose between continuing to work in an unsafe working environment or strike. But because the law favors the employer over the worker, we're all unemployed now. There should be a process that's fair to the employee and morally right for the employer. The Employee Free Choice Act would provide us with that fair and morally right process."

President Barack Obama has committed to signing the legislation into law if it reaches his desk, making Feinstein's support crucial. However, Feinstein remains the only Democratic member of the California Congressional delegation who has yet to support the legislation which could help open the pathway for thousands of Americans to join the middle class.

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(Dick Meister, May 23, 2009)

A new study by one of the country's most highly regarded labor experts makes clear beyond doubt that illegal employer actions and lax government oversight have denied great and growing numbers of workers the legal right of unionization.

That's had much to with the percentage of workers belonging to unions dropping to little more than 12 percent from a level almost double that three decades ago, says Kate Bronfenbrenner. She's director of labor education research at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

"Our labor law system is broken," Bronfenbrenner concluded. "Polling consistently shows that a majority of workers believe they would be better off if they had a union in their workplace, but they also feel that they would be taking a great risk if they were to try to organize."

As a result, she says, "the overwhelming majority of workers who want unions don't have them."

The workers, Bronfenbrenner adds, "know intuitively what our data show - that the overwhelming majority of U.S. employers are willing to use a broad arsenal of legal and illegal tactics to interfere with the rights of workers to organize, and that they do so with near impunity."

As her study notes, the system is "operating in direct violation of the law" - the law  that says employers must allow employees to vote freely, without threats of retaliation or any other consequences, on whether they want a union to bargain with the employers  to set their working conditions.

The study covered a random sample of 1,004 union organizing drives over a recent four-year period. In more than half the drives, employers threatened to close all or part of their facilities or lay-off workers if they voted to unionize. In nearly half the drives, employers threatened to reduce pay and benefits...Read more...

The labor movement is taking square aim at Wall Street with a new tool in its fight to pass the Employee Free Choice Act: the hundreds of billions of dollars in pension funds it manages for union workers and retirees, some of it held by the same firms that are fighting the provision known as "card check."

"Has your company made any public statements in support or opposition to EFCA?" asks one of nine pointed questions in a polite, detailed four-page questionnaire.

"If 'Yes,' please explain."

The detailed questionnaire has three parts. The first asks about fund managers' public positions, lobbying and political contributions. The second asks managers to "disclose any relationships during the past five years between your company and any organization(s) opposing the passage" of EFCA. The form lists 14 organizations, from anti-EFCA organizations like the Workforce Fairness Institute to trade groups that oppose it, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Roundtable.

A third passage asked whether other any trade association to which the fund managers belong has taken a position on the bill.

While the survey assures managers that it doesn't intend to impose "requirements or limitations" on their political activity, a cover letter from Teamsters union leaders tells another story: The leaders are concerned, according to a copy of the local's letter obtained by POLITICO, that Wall Street is "undermining the interests" of union retirees...

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(Harold Meyerson, Thursday, May 14, 2009)

If our nation was governed by business's version of democratic choice, we would hold elections to determine the winner, but nearly half the time the incumbent would remain in power even if he lost.

In its campaign to derail the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), business has fearlessly depicted itself as the defender of elections and the secret ballot as well as the foe of the dread "card check" -- the process, championed by unions and included within EFCA, that would allow workers to sign union affiliation cards rather than compelling them to go through a ratification election in which harassment and firings of workers are all too common.

But the kind of democratic choice that business favors is choice without consequence -- a position made clear by its opposition to the other key component of EFCA: binding arbitration between company and union if they've been unable to agree on a contract within 120 days of a union winning the election. A study of first-contract negotiations by John-Paul Ferguson and Thomas A. Kochan of MIT's Sloan School of Management makes clear why such arbitration is needed. After surveying 22,000 unionization campaigns between 1999 and 2004, the authors found that even after a majority of workers voted for a union, they actually reached a contractual agreement with management (which is currently under no legal obligation to come to an agreement) only 56 percent of the time.

Heads, management wins. Tails, the employees lose.

It's a lovely system for businesses that don't want to pay higher wages or accord their workers some rights, and they've been fighting hard to keep it that way. They've managed for now to cow some cowable Democratic senators, which is why Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, who is trying to steer EFCA through the Senate, is negotiating with a number of his colleagues. "It's a moving target," Harkin says.

That it's moving at all is the result of Arlen Specter's hop from Republican to Democratic ranks, which has compelled Specter to look to his left instead of his right to see where his next opponent is coming from. Just as the threat of defeat in next year's Republican primary concentrated Specter's mind and sped him out of the GOP, so the threat of a union-backed opponent in the Democratic primary -- spurred by Democrats' bewilderment and anger at Specter's post-conversion opposition to the president's budget, his cheering on the spectral candidacy of Minnesota Republican Norm Coleman and his opposition to card check -- has prodded Specter to find some middle ground on reforming labor law. (It takes a rare talent to alienate not just the party you're leaving but also the party you're joining, yet Specter's been up to the task.)

Labor, Harkin and his fellow liberals are willing to make changes to EFCA to win the support of their Democratic colleagues, so long as those changes don't perpetuate management's ability to avoid unionization by threatening workers and refusing to negotiate contracts. Accordingly, the scramble is underway for modifications to card check and binding arbitration that still meet labor's goals.

Rather than give the arbitrator the right to impose a contract, some senators, Specter among them, have expressed interest in a form of arbitration used in baseball to settle contract disputes. In a baseball arbitration, the union and management submit their proposed contracts to the arbitrator, who tries to get them to narrow their differences, asks for their final offers and chooses the one he finds more reasonable.

Among the suggested alternatives to card check are proposals to shorten the currently open-ended period between the request for election and the actual vote (today, management can stall a vote almost indefinitely) and to allow workers to vote by mailing their ballots to the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, which (like absentee voting) would preserve the secret ballot but enable workers to escape the regimen of threats they often encounter in the weeks preceding an election.

If, after all the negotiations, Harkin and the unions conclude that the only bill that's enactable in this congressional session is too watered down to protect workers trying to unionize, they would, understandably enough, not want it to go forward. In that case, why don't the Democrats just put the original bill -- card check, binding arbitration and all -- to a vote and see which of their members choose to go on record against protecting those workers? If Specter and his fellow waverers wish to avoid that vote and the wrath it would incur among their onetime union backers, they'd do well to support the alternative provisions that restore Americans' rights in the workplace.

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(Los Angeles County Federation of Labor)

As our nation confronts the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the historic election of President Barack Obama presents us with a once in a lifetime opportunity for the labor movement to play an integral role in leading us out of the crisis and building a more just society for all people.

That’s why this year, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO has made it its number one priority to join workers across this country to help pass the Employee Free Choice Act – federal legislation that would allow workers to earn better wages, health care and retirement benefits by signing a card to join a union.

We understand that the economic recovery of our nation is going to take time, but we also believe that the Employee Free Choice Act is an important component in helping get our country back on track by opening the door for workers to make good middle class wages.

Over the next several months, workers in Los Angeles will be working to urge Senator Feinstein to support the Employee Free Choice Act.  We will work hard to ensure that we can join a union the same way we can join the military. The same way thousands of our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters and fathers joined, with their signatures. If that signature was good enough for them to enlist and fight for our country, then that signature should be good enough for us to fight for our livelihoods here at home by joining a union.

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Repsentative Tom Price (R-Ga.), March 24

Imagine, for a moment, that the decisions you made in the privacy of the voting booth last November became public knowledge. Imagine that your neighbors, co-workers, and even strangers were able to look over your shoulder when you pulled the lever and know with certainty who and what you supported.

Would you change any of your votes?

In these politically charged times, the majority view is not always the “popular” view. While many Americans publicly display their political opinions with bumper stickers and yard signs, others choose to keep their thoughts and opinions private. It is the ability of those Americans to exercise their beliefs without fear of retribution that forms the very bedrock of our republic.

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(Los Angeles Times, March 28)

Reporting from Washington -- Whether you label it the "card check" bill or the Employee Free Choice Act, you can also call it something else -- in deep trouble.

Key senators this week appeared to cripple prospects for passing the highly polarizing measure, the labor movement's top priority in Congress, which is aimed at making it easier for workers to join unions.

The latest hurdle came Friday, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said she would seek alternative legislation that was less divisive. Feinstein, a past sponsor of the act, cited the flailing economy as a reason; other critics of the bill have said it would drive up operating costs for businesses at a perilous time.

"This is an extraordinarily difficult economy, and feelings are very strong on both sides of the issue," Feinstein said in a statement. "I would hope there is some way to find common ground that would be agreeable to both business and labor."

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(Washington Post, March 22)

As business and labor gird for battle over legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, the debate could be transformed by a "third way" proposed by three companies that like to project a progressive image: Costco, Starbucks and Whole Foods.

Like other businesses, the three companies are opposed to two of the Employee Free Choice Act's components -- a provision that would allow workers to form a union if a majority sign pro-union cards, without having to hold a secret-ballot election, and one that would impose binding arbitration when employers and unions fail to reach a contract after 120 days.

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A new Gallup Poll finds the majority of Americans support the fundamental tenets of the Employee Free Choice Act. Fifty-three percent of respondents said they would favor "a new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers." The poll was conducted on Mar. 14-15 and was based on telephone interviews with 1,024 adults across the country.

Previous Gallup polling has shown that Americans are fundamentally sympathetic to labor unions, which is reflected in their general support for the Employee Free Choice Act. In recent years, Gallup's annual polling on workplace issues has found consistently high approval of labor unions.

(Institure for Southern Studies, March 17)

In thebattle surrounding the Employee Free Choice Act, legislators from one Southern state could make all the difference.

Arkansas could be pushed front-and-center in the coming months as the showdown over the pro-worker EFCA heats up in the halls of the 111th Congress. The votes of Arkansas' two U.S. senators, Democrats Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln (pictured), could play a deciding role in the passage of the bill.

The EFCA, seen as one of the most important pieces of legislation in support of labor rights in a generation, was introduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate on March 10th. The bill would allow unions to form when a majority of workers sign cards -- a process dubbed "card check" -- as opposed to drawn-out National Labor Board elections in which companies frequently subject workers to harassment and intimidation (the recent battle at Smithfield Foods in North Carolina being a sharp example of years of employer intimidation that jeopardized union elections.)