Update: Senator Harkin justifies vote saying NLRB nomineee “cannot” change the rules
When it comes to whether NLRB nominee Craig Becker can “implement the Employee Free Choice Act by administrative fiat,” AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff says “yes”. Senator Harkin justified his pro-Becker vote yesterday by saying “no”. This comes directly from Senator Tom Harkin’s prepared statement at the HELP Committee Executive Session on Pending Nominations yesterday. Shout out to [more...]

Posted Fri, 05 Feb 2010 .

AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff: NLRB appointees can “change the rules”
Update: Senator Harkin justifies vote saying NLRB nomineee “cannot” change the rules As the Director of Organizing at the AFL-CIO, Stewart Acuff draws a smaller crowd than the SEIU’s Andy Stern or his boss at the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka. But that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have something laughable to say. In his poorly timed Huffington Post [more...]

Posted Thu, 04 Feb 2010 .

No Reason For Elections?

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After pressuring members of the House of Representatives to pass the comically misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” in March 2007, union officials continued their drive to rewrite organizing rules by raising the issue in the Senate in June.

Labor leaders hope to dramatically change the way working Americans join unions — by stealing every employee’s right to a personal, private vote. Why would union bosses do this? Because they need to rebuild their shrinking membership, and it’s easier to coerce and cajole employees under the “card check” method, which is like an open petition. This is a process rife with intimidation, coercion, and confusion because everyone knows each employee’s preference and because there is often no opportunity given to tell the side of the story union bosses don’t want exposed.

Bruce Raynor, a top union president, claims: “There’s no need to subject the workers to an election.” It would be better to listen to the words of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which said “workers sometimes sign union authorization cards not because they intend to vote for the union in the election but to avoid offending the person who asks them to sign, often a fellow worker, or simply to get the person off their back.”