President (To Win Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(D) Kamala Harris
(R) Donald Trump
80%
20%
CO-01 (Denver)
See Full Big Line
(D) Diana DeGette*
(R) V. Archuleta
98%
2%
CO-02 (Boulder-ish)
See Full Big Line
(D) Joe Neguse*
(R) Marshall Dawson
95%
5%
CO-03 (West & Southern CO)
See Full Big Line
(D) Adam Frisch
(R) Jeff Hurd
50%
50%
CO-04 (Northeast-ish Colorado)
See Full Big Line
(R) Lauren Boebert
(D) Trisha Calvarese
90%
10%
CO-05 (Colorado Springs)
See Full Big Line
(R) Jeff Crank
(D) River Gassen
80%
20%
CO-06 (Aurora)
See Full Big Line
(D) Jason Crow*
(R) John Fabbricatore
90%
10%
CO-07 (Jefferson County)
See Full Big Line
(D) B. Pettersen
(R) Sergei Matveyuk
90%
10%
CO-08 (Northern Colo.)
See Full Big Line
(D) Yadira Caraveo
(R) Gabe Evans
70%↑
30%
State Senate Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
80%
20%
State House Majority
See Full Big Line
DEMOCRATS
REPUBLICANS
95%
5%
March 11, 2009 07:59 PM UTC
30 Comments
Pass the act, then abolish the NRLB to save taxpayer money.
The Udall mystery solved– the act violates employee freedom by getting rid of the secret ballot, opening up employees to pressure from management and labor unions. Secret ballots-good Pressure from management or labor unions bad.
John Stuart Mill would not be happy with this Act.
to be intimidated into getting rid of the secret ballot.
It baffles me that so many of my fellow democrats seem not just willing but positively giddy at the prospect of letting the secret ballot go by the wayside. I wouldn’t want my municipal elections to be done via petition and I don’t think union organizing should be done that way either.
Do the rules for forming a union need to be revised? Speedier certification elections? Absolutely. Do away with Card Check decertification? Absolutely! EFCA? Not in its current form, no.
The chances of employees being “intimidated” by the employeer? Likely 100%
The chance of being intimidated by the union who is trying to sell you on the idea? somewhat less than that.
The Union cannot FIRE YOU for organizing, the employeer can and does.
Check the DOL stats
It takes about 7 YEARS to get adjudication of a NLRB complaint OOOOOO scary
Unions raise wages (even in non-union jobs) They provide retirement and health benefits. Folks don’t want that stuff so we (unionists) intimidate folks into taking that stuff.
Really?
I think that intimidation coming from either side is reprehensible and I will not defend it.
The unions have over-reached with EFCA. I am pro-union 80-90% of the time.
A union cannot fire you. Your business can (as many have, in about 28% of unionization campaigns, historically).
Otherwise I think Tyler has said some good stuff above.
protects the employee from disclosing which side of the unionizing issue they stand on.
How can an employer terminate an employee for supporting the union if the ballot is cast in private?
There is a reason that caucuses are not as well attended as primaries…people like to cast their vote in PRIVATE. This right should be protected in the workplace.
If you are a pro-union employee, in order to get to a private ballot you will generally have to take steps to make that vote happen. It’s not as if every single business automatically has a union election every year just for kicks.
Thus, I think, the pro-union workers who are fired or intimidated by trying to get a unionization election in the first place are much more stridently disadvantaged in the current situation than anti-union employees might be during a card check situation post-EFCA’s passage.
this is the part of the “changes” that I alluded to earlier. I did not say that I support the existing situation…it needs to be repaired.
Were I put in charge of revising the current system, I do something like this:
Employees’ privacy must be protected so they can vote their conscience.
When the petition is submitted, it should be submitted directly to the NLRB (and the list of signatories compared to an employer provided employee roster).
If there are sufficient signatories, then the NLRB would run the election which would need to take place within 3-4 weeks.
The employer should not have a right to know who has been petitioning to start the union, thus reducing the chance for retaliation against those employees (I think employers would like this as well because it would free them to run their business without fear of a retaliation claim).
Keep in mind, employees may well sign a petition so as to not irritate their co-worker who is asking them to sign. When they get a private ballot in front of them they may decide they sort of like the idea of a merit raise and consequently, vote against the union.
Private ballot and open ballot are the choice in “Choice”. It is not eliminating private ballot.
employee have the “choice” to deprive me of a ballot is essentially robbing me of my “choice”….
Think about it and give the anti-union Republican talking point a rest. When people join organizations, (think about the groups you joined) their application is a “vote”. The employees, not the employer, can still however call for a ballot election if they choose. How many times and ways does that fact have to be stated? And besides secret ballots are generally reserved for elections of people, not issues, so the claim of the secret ballot being some kind of hold grail of democracy is another line of idiot feed.
The claim of union intimidation is also a made up talking point. In the history of labor law, those charges are frankly rare for obvious reasons. Unions cannot fire employees or take personnel action against them. Look it up under the National Relations Act. Most opponents of labor law have one primary goal in common and that is to prevent employees from joining unions. No double talk or misinformation will change that fact. Joining a union is a right under a federal law. That may inconvenience some people, but that’s why it is called a law.
you don’t have a very strong argument.
And it’s NLRB. Unless you mean the National Raver Libations Board, but that generally deals with other stuff.
National Rabor Lelations Board. Thanks for the correction. Argument still strong, but justifiable criticism of my patronizing attitude. I got in trouble for that in 6th grade.
I’m generally supportive of unions, but everyone knows they damaged themselves by over-reaching in the last several decades. EFCA looks like more of that, but there is clearly disagreement as to the secret ballot issue. I count three different interpretations in this blog. Which means EFCA needs to be clarified?
EFCA or no, I never understood why anyone would begrudge U.S. autoworkers $28/hr. Give it to them, it increases aggregate demand. Lower management pay structure. Cap lawyer salaries at $60K. Give ’em the rest of the TARP money too, as long as they work hard and build good cars.
If you ain’t building it or selling it, you’re expendable. that’s they way back to a strong economy in America.
What do you mean by “three different interpretations” though? I think most of us have been pretty clear on what EFCA means: in addition to all the stuff you had (including secret ballot elections), you also get the ability to sign cards to form a union. What else have you seen?
1) It eliminates secret ballot (the prevailing public opinion).
2) It doesn’t eliminate secret ballot (proponents claims).
3) It can force a vote that forces people to vote in the open, or as so eloquently stated by Ardavonian “Having another employee have the ‘choice’ to deprive me of a ballot is essentially robbing me of my ‘choice'”. (Ardavonian used to work for the NRLB).
I think that is three separate interpretations on the secret ballot issue, but I am not insistent on the point.
Management and labor unions will change their position to whatever they think gives them the most power. Individual liberty must prevail, and that is best done in secret.
worked for the NLRB (and I certainly don’t like the way it was operated under Bush).
I just tend to be pro-employee and have a hard time seeing how anyone—labor or employer—having the authority to take away an individual employee’s right to vote is pro-employee.
I was just playfully pumping up your credentials to give you more credibility, since your position agrees with mine. This is commonly done in politics. See “Bill Richardson” or “George W Bush”. Or “Al Gore”.
It should be easy to form a union. But the secret ballot issue is why the bill will fail, or if it does pass, it won’t last. See JS Mill discussion below.
….abolish the military. Or maybe 25% of it.
The cost of the NRLB (sic) is inconsequential in the federal budget.
Yes. NLRB is a tiny part of the budget. But it is the principle that I was getting at. We can’t pay for all this government. And I agree on the 25% cut for the defense budget. Spread it around better. Leave it in the private sector, the lower down the income chain the better.
Bertrand Russell quote seems to support secret ballot preservation?
Mill didn’t believe the ballot should be secret under any circumstances. Methinks you are confusing your 17th Century political philosophers.
But, you’re wrong, as Pols points out. The secret ballot is not eliminated by the Free Choice Act. If you can point to the language in the Act that would eliminate the secret ballot, I’d love to see it.
Oh wait, you can’t? Hmmmm…..
might be overstating it. He justifies it in some circumstances. But anyway, methinks that what youthinks is right about what reefthinks. 🙂
… and I came to a totally different conclusion. JS Mill opposed both legal coercion and social pressure as methods to influence or control people’s opinions and behavior. (Unless a person’s behavior harms other people). To Mill, majority opinion does not imply ‘correctness’, therefore Society should treat diversity with respect. It is my belief that loss of the right to the secret ballot (if EFCA causes that, which I still don’t know) would result in sufficient social pressure and’or legal coercion (be it from management or the union) to force a ‘correct’ vote that arises from perceived majority opinion rather than individual liberty. In this scenario, the most powerful interest may influence the individual voter to cast a ballot that is inconsistent with the voter’s actual wishes. Which is why the unions fought so hard for the secret ballot. Now, the perception is that they want to get rid of it.
Oddly enough, even though Mill is regarded as a father of the modern Liberal and Labour movements, the principles laid out in those 5 chapters are a cornerstone of the mid-20th century American Conservative philosophy, up to Barry Goldwater at least. (Not sure what the hell happened to the conservative ideology after that, but in all fairness, the modern liberal and even many “progressives” have morphed 180 degrees during the 20th century also. Which is why people who look at the world as left v right, or liberal v conservative, are severely stunting their ability to contribute to the development of a more meaningful and productive society. Those people are called things like “policital operatives” and “congressional aides”. But I digress……
between a spokesperson for Americans for Prosperity (think right wing) and a spokesperson for one of the unions in Colorado. The audience – mostly local business people, and a few right wingers who are not business people. Frankly I was stunned by the frothing at the mouth over EFCA. Sadly much of the “debate” was not on the merits of the bill but rather rantings about how the unions control the Democratic Party (the quote was, “there is no Democratic Party”). See what happens when there is more than Republican money in politics?! Other choice quotes: “More excessive penalities in the bill will intimidate employers.” Unions are nothing more than “dues-gathering societies,” money used almost exclusively for Democrats. “The consolidation of political power will bring lasting damage.”
Gotta go wash out my brain.
. . . where the Democrat Party deviates from the union agenda. Do we really want to become Michigan or California — highly unionized and highly Democrat (synonymous). Me thinks not.
For example, unions are not an issue in the rural, high country – almost don’t exist there. And yet we seem to have a business community that despises unions.
Ironically, here’s what a major high country employer announced today:
“Wednesday’s announcement from Vail Resorts that its employees will face wage cuts to cope with our rocky economic climate may have been the last thing struggling workers needed to hear. . . .”
http://www.summitdaily.com/art…
“worstest person” and “me thinks not.”
Are you posting drunk? It would certainly explain most of your other comments.
A local business owner said having employers and employees negotiate a union contract is like “having God and Satan in the same room.”
There is no monolithic “business community.” Business leaders span the gamut from rabid right-wing to loony left-wing. And I would guess that a giant chunk of the business leaders don’t give a rip about this – because their companies are not unionized and are not going to become unionized.
There were several major business leaders on the Bennett fundraising invite posted just the other day. Did you know the North Suburban Metro Chamber endorsed almost all Democrats in 2008? If you are referring to small business, it is true very few support Democrats. But when it comes to big business, several cross over because they have everything to gang from cozying up to the majority party. But no jobs creators of any consequence — big or small — are going to support EFCA.