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Republicans derail pro-union EFCA; Labor vows return in friendlier Congress

Date Posted: July 6 2007

WASHINGTON - In the end, the Employee Free Choice Act was doomed, but it did provide some important information for union voters in 2008.

The pro-union EFCA - one of the most important pieces of legislation affecting organized labor - was effectively killed this year on a 51-48 party line vote in the Democratic-led Senate. Democrats have a thin majority in the Senate, but needed a total of 60 votes to shut off a Republican filibuster of the bill.

They didn't come close: while Dems voted unanimously in favor of the measure, the only Republican to vote for it was Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter. The bill was doomed because President Bush was ready with his veto pen. The House passed the bill with a 241-185 vote on March 1.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney put a happy face on the outcome of the vote, although it was a sign of organized labor's political weakness that only a single Republican senator could be lobbied to break with corporate America, which has strongly lobbied against the bill.

"Today's vote shows a majority of the Senate supports changing the law to restore working people's freedom to make their own choice to join a union and bargain
for a better life," Sweeney said. "That is a watershed achievement - one scarcely imagined just a couple of years ago - and an important step toward shoring up our nation's struggling middle class."

Sweeney vowed workers would remember the vote "when they go to the ballot boxes in 2008. The vote made clear exactly who is on the side of working families' dreams and economic opportunity - and who is siding with corporate America to block those opportunities."

And that sums up organized labor's strategy: to use the vote to show members that on such a vital piece of legislation, all Democrats supported unions, while nearly all Republicans did not.

Among other things, the Employee Free Choice Act would write "majority signup" - also called card-check recognition - into labor law. The new rules would simplify the union organizing process by allowing workers to vote in a union at their workplace by signing cards, without going through the more formal and longer secret ballot process.

The EFCA would also raise fines for labor law-breaking to $20,000 per violation, mandate mediation and arbitration if labor and management could not agree on a first contract within 90 days and outlaw boss-run "captive audience" anti-union meetings.

"Corporations trample on workers with reckless disregard for the law, and they must be stopped," said Teamsters President James Hoffa. "Just last week, anti-union FedEx declared it would illegally fight workers in Wilmington, Massachusetts, who voted overwhelmingly to join the Teamsters. Despite the election's certification by the National Labor Relations Board, FedEx said it would 'use the only means available to us to get a court review - refusing to bargain."

In a speech that demonstrates the Republicans and Big Business position on stopping the Employee free Choice Act, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) likened the bill to a Communist dictatorship that stifles free speech. Both McConnell and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) repeated the Big Business mantra that the bill would eliminate the secret ballot vote for a union.

The ultra-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page said "nearly every business lobby made the vote one of its main priorities for which Members to support in 2008, suggesting how dangerous this would be if it ever became law."

"While they're really hoping that they can scare the hell out of working Americans by implying that this bill will actually result in them losing rights-if not being dragged outside and beaten senseless by fictional union thugs-they are, of course, lying through their capped teeth," said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).

"The Employee Free Choice Act does not abolish the secret election process," Brown added. "That would still be available. The bill simply enables workers to form a union through majority signup, if they prefer that method." Brown said the holding of formal elections affords employers time to "come in and intimidate workers into voting against their own self interest."

Instead, he said "card check" rules would allow workers to unionize based simply on the majority of them signing cards declaring their desire to form a union.

"The system today is broken," said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) who sponsored the EFCA. "Workers know it. Employers know it. Too many of them (employers) want to keep it that way. The only way to ensure economic security for the nation's middle class is to rebuild the nation's unions by leveling the playing field to allow workers to freely decide whether to join a union."