Sean from MNPublius voices his disgust at “front groups” attacking the “Employee Free Choice Act”, the proposal with the most Orwellian name since the “Fairness Doctrine”
[State DFL chair] Brian Melendez sums it up:
Two front groups have been spreading false statements about the Employee Free Choice Act — lies that Senator Norm Coleman has gladly repeated on many occasions, even after labor leaders met with him and explained that the statements were untruthful and that the Act in fact guarantees a secret ballot. Senator Coleman desperately wants to divert attention from his record and from his intimate ties with the corporate special interests that fund his campaign, so he has resorted to telling lies about his opponent, Al Franken.
More about the E”F”CA later. Back to Melendez
But in Minnesota, we don’t tolerate intentionally false statements in paid political advertising; in fact, such statements are a crime, and rightly so. We are therefore holding legally accountable the two groups that have knowingly and intentionally spread these false statements in Minnesota. A judge will hold those groups accountable. And Minnesotavoters will hold Norm Coleman accountable.
It’s about time. It was exposed that these ads were intentionally dishonest a long time ago. Coleman has been asked to condemn the ads. Coleman continued to trot along telling the same lie. The ads never stopped. Therefore, appropriate legal action’s being taken.
Yes. It’s a terrible thing when front groups that are paid by political special interests spread craven, facile lies.
Get out there and condemn ’em!
Whew. I’m glad we could settle this.
But in Minnesota, we don’t tolerate intentionally false statements in paid political advertising
Heh. Hehehehehe.
DFL good, GOP bad. Mongo want cookie.
Mongo only pawn in DFL game of life.
…of course, the hard part was inventing the Candy-Gram.
Excuse me, while I whip the truth out…
Melendez must really owe the unions a lot, because his troops are getting killed on this issue and yet here they are, doubling down on what is clearly an electoral loser.
Lessee….the plain text of the DFL complaint makes it very clear that the law eliminates the requirement for a secret ballot, exactly what is being claimed in the commercial. So how exactly is anyone lying about this?
The DFL doesn’t give a rat’s nether region about the unions. Unions are to the DFL what conservatives are to the MN GOP.
So how exactly is anyone lying about this?
The same way the Swift Boat Veterans were.
The DFL doesn’t give a rat’s nether region about the unions. Unions are to the DFL what conservatives are to the MN GOP.
If that were true, Melendez wouldn’t be putting up this much ruckus. But he is.
Kermit your half right, the DFL cares about unions, just not the members. The unions give them huge amounts of cash. The members not so much.
Let’s suppose the ’employee free choice act’ becomes law.
SEUI organizes workers at your favorite fast food outlet.
Employee turnover at the outlet is high. Within a year, no one who voted for SEUI is stil working there. The union is locked in and responsible to no one.
SEUI has had these sort of complaints lodged against it before. They move in, make wild claims to the workers about how much SEUI will improve their benefits package, SEUI gets recognized, and a year or two later the workers wouldn’t know that they even had a union — if the dues weren’t taken from their paycheck every week.
Power without responsibility. The union organizer’s dream come true.
Let me add a little different perspective here. I’m probably one of the few regular friendly commentators here who is at least a lttle pro-union; I’ve been a union member, and, briefly, a union delegate.
One of the things (I’m tempted to say “few things”, but, bizarrely, it really turns out to be quite a few things) that my Trotskyite friend Steve Brust and I agree on (although he’d put it differently) that every time a union drive fails because the management treats workers better, it’s a victory for the union movement, and for workers. (Steve thinks, I believe, that it’s not as much of a victory as a successful union drive; I think that it’s actually better.)
Which is why I’m in favor of management being able to require a secret ballot. (EFCA would remove management’s ability to insist on that.) I think that, by and large, “card checks” are legitimate tools for union organizing, but it is a tool that can be abused; the ability of management to require the secret ballot is a check on that abuse.
It’s not entirely accurate to say that EFCA would remove the secret ballot — union organizers would still have the ability to have a secret ballot if they wanted one; management would not have the ability to insist on one.
Which means that, in those cases where a majority of the members of the bargaining unit are actually in favor of a given union, there would be no change at all — they’d still get their union via the card check.
The only time it would make a difference is where pressure to sign the cards — and it might even be legitimate, social pressure — creates a phony majority that would not stand up to a secret ballot.
Reasonable people can be for or against EFCA; but to suggest that union organizers would eliminate the secret ballot when they thought it in their interest is both obvious, and fair comment.
And whatever it is, it ain’t a lie.
The only time it would make a difference is where pressure to sign the cards
The way I see it, there is one more time, with much more sinister consequencies: Imagine members would actually want to dissolve the union for whatever reason. Without a secret ballot, they wouldn’t even dare to show up for the poll. EFCA basically removes any real challenge to union hegemony.
I’ve been a union member
So have I, as a matter of fact.
I wasn’t, but had to pay union dues regardless, in one of my temp summer jobs. Effing extortionists!
Mrs. D is in a union (AFSCME) because she has to be for her job. She doesn’t get much benefit, but the union takes a chunk out of her paycheck every time that can be as much as 6% of the net, depending on the pay period. We do get nifty e-mail “Action Alerts” from AFSCME telling us why George W. Bush is evil and we should vote for Hillary, er, we mean Obama, along with the 1% annual raises they’ve been able to negotiate for her. Not exactly value-added.
So how’s jroosh getting paid again?
Haven’t you been paying attention to Flash?
Scaife pays all of us.
The ad says Franken wants to eliminate the secret ballot. He does not. That why it isn’t true.
The problem with labor, and the reason why it is unappealing to many workers, is that it represents not workers but a slice of the economy which an individual may or may not occupy and will almost certainly not occupy for more than a few years.
It’s dehumanizing to make someone’s primary identity the labor they produce. Trotskyites are worse than Leninists when it comes to doing this.
Unions promise the individual worker the moon and stars when they need that one thing only an individual worker can supply — his or her vote for representation. After that it’s all about the movement and not about what you, the worker, want the union to do for you. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
OK, then, Disco and Fulcrum; explain what the act WOULD do, and how it differs from
a) what unions do now, and
b) the traditional understanding of “secret” balloting.
I’ve heard the explanation, but I’d love to hear the other side explain it.
(Any other Dems who are reading are welcome, too…)
Mr D, I stumble across the AFSCME newspaper (why do they print so many of them and leave them all around town…and this is in every city I lived in?)……why are they so angry all the time? Why do they hate America? Why do they hate the companies that pay taxes that support their salaries?
For angry people, they have it pretty nice. My public school teacher relatives only have to work for 35 years (40 hour weeks, 9.5 mos a year…well, less Christmas break, spring break, personal days, etc). Then they retire with full pay and benefits (or something pretty close to it).
Sleight of hand, as usual with these guys. The proposed changes do not eliminate the secret ballot, they add a ‘card check’ option along side of it.
If a union wants a secret ballot they can submit a petition with 31% or more of the employees. Or they can submit the “card checks” of 51% of the employees, after which the union is certified.
So even though the ‘secret ballot’ has not been eliminated, you may end up in a union without ever having the opportunity to take part in a secret ballot.
These unions, by the way, consider ‘peer pressure’ to be a legitimate influence on the worker’s choice. ‘Peer pressure’ + card check does equal Johnny Sack.
Sleight of hand, as usual with these guys. The proposed changes do not eliminate the secret ballot, they add a ‘card check’ option along side of it.
If a union wants a secret ballot they can submit a petition with 31% or more of the employees. Or they can submit the “card checks” of 51% of the employees, after which the union is certified.
Perfectly described.
I am failing to see a circumstance where the ‘secret ballot’ option would ever again be used by a union rep, given the ‘card check’ option. Can anyone describe a scenario where a ‘secret ballot’ would happen if this passes?
Is it not an effective elimination of the ‘secret ballot’ option? You can say I do all you want, but if it will never happen, I don’t really have the option, do I? It seems like attaching a lottery ticket to my paycheck and having my employer call it a ‘million dollar bonus’, only with less likelihood of becoming true. *shrug*
If the between 30 and fifty percent of card checks req. an election the union rep may ask for one. I doubt that it would happen very often. I believe that card checks consistently measure more union support than is shown when it comes time to make a real choice — there’s that darn ‘peer pressure’ tactic again.
Seriously, if union organizers did not believe they would get more card-check ‘ayes’ than they would get on a secret ballot, why bother fighting for the change.
Dishonest, lying union reps as usual. They drive the cadillacs, the workers drive the chevies — and the workers keep their mouths shut if they know what’s good for them.
Terry said:
“If the between 30 and fifty percent of card checks req. an election the union rep may ask for one. I doubt that it would happen very often.”
Exactly! And never, if the rep is smart. If you can get even 50% to card check, you are going to lose a secret ballot.