Two business groups, Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF) and Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), have released a web video game illustrating potential negative effects in the workplace should card check legislation become law.
The game, which is entitled "Card Checked," takes place in a stylized setting after the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. The player encounters several scenarios as an employee of a tattoo parlor.
The fictional International Body Art Designers Union is trying to unionize the parlor using strong-armed tactics.
"Unfortunately, the game ends much like real life in that EFCA is expected to cost 600,000 jobs in the first year if passed," AWF and ATR said in a release.
Some of the game's highlights (most happen if you do not sign the union membership card) :
A tie-dye wearing hippie tells the player that all the tattoo artists should unionize, quoting the French revolutionary motto, "Liberty, fraternity, and equality!"
Scruffy union organizers who look more like mafiosos hang around the workplace pressuring employees to unionize.
If the players refuses to sign the card, a co-worker tells him that "union thugs told me that something might happen to my cat Min Min."
If the player continues to refuse unionization the organizers smash the back window of his sports car. A slide says there have been 9,000 incidences of union violence since 1975.
Once the store unionizes, union officials say they want to take dues from the player's paycheck to buy a "private Learjet so we can go to posh resorts for, uh... important conferences on defending worker rights."
One of America's largest unions is targeting a prominent opponent of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make labor organizing easier.
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) released a new television ad Wednesday that goes after the legislative record of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Saying the business association has lobbied against health insurance for children, increasing the minimum wage and granting family leave, SEIU argues in the ad it would make sense that the Chamber would oppose "better pay and health benefits for America's workers."
Unions believe EFCA, often called "card-check," would let workers negotiate for better wages and benefits since the bill would ease organizing rules enough for them to secure collective bargaining rights. Business groups have disagreed, saying the legislation would lead to more union strikes and slow down industry.
Entitled "Bad Company," the ad is slated to run in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia and North Dakota.
The SEIU ad follows on the heels of an announcement by the Chamber Wednesday for a vast grassroots campaign to support free enterprise. Expected to spend $100 million, the Chamber plans to finance lobbying efforts, national ads and grassroots campaigns from now until the 2010 elections in order to "defend and advance economic freedom," said Tom Donohue, the group's president, in a statement.
Contrary to the claims of the business lobby, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would actually preserve the right to a secret ballot in union organizing, says Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska).
Young, one of the few Republicans who favors EFCA, said a secret ballot was still an option under the controversial legislation.
Under the legislation, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) would certify a union if a majority of employees sign a card. The law would take away employers' right to demand a secret ballot election after such cards are presented, as they can do under current law. Employees could still choose to hold an election instead of using the card-check process.
According to the Anchorage Daily News, the constituent who asked Young the question was none too happy about the response he got.
"What you just said is almost enough to make me vote against you," the constituent responded.
24% of Alaska's workforce is represneted by unions, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's the third highest rate in the nation.
Labor Secretary Hilda Solis neglected Thursday to mention the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in remarks to the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), one of the contentious union bill's biggest opponents.
Instead, the former California congresswoman, speaking before a breakfast meeting of the trade group's members, concentrated on what both the business association and the Obama administration agreed upon: the $787 billion stimulus package.
"This is just one down-payment. It won't last long but we have to produce something," Solis said.
Thanking NAM for their support of the recovery effort, which was key to its passage on Capitol Hill, Solis said there are a number of areas for the trade association and the administration can work together in to help right the tough economy, whether it was creating jobs in the renewable energy industry, more workforce training or expanding college education.
"The long and the short of it is there are good opportunities for us in the future," Solis said.
Solis is the first Obama administration official to speak at a NAM event, according to the trade group's president and CEO, former Michigan Gov. John Engler (R). The business group is known for its Republican ties but has reached across the aisle in the past, most recently in its support of the stimulus package.
One area where NAM and the administration will not find agreement is on EFCA, which would make union organizing much easier if passed. Business groups have lobbied heavily against the bill, believing it will lead to more strikes and work stoppages. Unions have supported it though, arguing it would give workers better wages and benefits by extending collective bargaining rights.
The White House is behind EFCA as well. Though not involved in the battle over the bill as much as some unions have wanted so far, both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have called for Congress to pass the legislation in public speeches.
Solis herself was a vocal supporter of EFCA while in Congress. The Democrat co-sponsored the legislation in the House and her backing of the bill served as a point of attack for Senate Republicans during her lengthy confirmation process for Labor Secretary.
-- Kevin Bogardus
Greg Sargent got his hands on an anti-card check newspaper ad set to print tomorrow:
The poll stats listed on the ad:
-74% of likely voters oppose the Employee Free Choice Act
-82% believe a secret ballot election is the best way to protect the individual rights of workers during union organizing elections.
-88% believe that a worker's vote should be kept private in a union organizing election.
-11% support Big Labor's card check agenda
It's no surprise that the angle of attack here involves preserving the secret ballot. Business supporters have focused on the democratic process as a cornerstone of their attack on EFCA, while labor supporters would like to shift the debate to the merits of being unionized and the struggle against business coercion. The poll numbers cited in the ad were likely in response to questions worded in the manner business prefers.
The ad is paid for by the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum dropped a hint yesterday that he won't get involved in Sen. Arlen Specter's primary bid. But Santorum appears to draw a distinction between actively taking sides in the primary and weighing in on the issue which so far has shaped the (potential) match-up.
In a fundraising email released by the Pennsylvania GOP yesterday, Santorum asks Republicans to "[join] with the Republican Party of Pennsylvania to send a message to our representatives in Congress to vote no on [card check] legislation." He adds later: "In February, the members of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania unanimously passed a resolution calling on the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation to oppose all efforts to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. A copy of this resolution has been sent to every member of the Pennsylvania Congressional Delegation." The letter does not mention Specter by name, but the Pennsylvania Republican had been considered the crucial swing vote on the legislation before he officially stated his opposition on Tuesday.
Here's the catch: though the letter was released yesterday, Santorum drafted it before Specter had announced his position on the issue and while he was under intense pressure by conservatives to oppose it. The date of drafting is indicated by Santorum when he mentions the bill had been introduced "last week." (The legislation was introduced in both houses on March 10.) A Pennsylvania GOP spokesman confirmed that Santorum wrote the letter well before it was released.
At the very least, this indicates that while Santorum was not publicly taking sides in the potential primary, he had no qualms ratcheting up the pressure on his former colleague.
Joe "the Plumber" Wurzelbacher and Pat Toomey will be joining forces against card-check next week. The conservative duo will both appear at a March 31 "save my ballot" rally in Philadelphia.
First Lady Michelle Obama honored Lilly Ledbetter with a reception at the White House today after President Obama signed the equal pay bill that bears Ledbetter's name.
Ledbetter is "an inspiration to women and men all across the country," Mrs. Obama said in her remarks at the reception, according to a pool report.
"She knew unfairness when she saw it and was willing to do something about it because it was the right thing to do, plain and simple," Mrs. Obama said.
Ledbetter discovered, on the verge of her retirement from a Goodyear plant, that she had been paid 40 percent less than her male peers. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which President Obama signed today, makes it easier for workers to file claims of pay discrimination by effectively extending the filing deadline, using the last discriminatory paycheck (rather than the first) to start the clock on the 180-day filing period.
"I know my daughters and granddaughters and your daughters and your granddaughters will have a better deal,'' Ledbetter said in her remarks at the reception. "That's what makes this fight worth fighting, that's what makes this fight one we had to win."
Obama and Ledbetter hugged after Ledbetter delivered her remarks, according to the pool report.
The House of Representatives today passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, sending the bill to President Obama's desk and signaling a victory for labor and women's rights activists, who have pushed for the legislation since 2007 amid opposition from President Bush.
The bill makes it easier for workers to collect damages for pay discrimination. It responds to a Supreme Court ruling against Lilly Ledbetter, who, on the verge of retirement from a Goodyear plant, learned she had been paid 40 percent less than her male peers.
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A labor advocacy group chaired by former Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.), a prominent member of President-elect Barack Obama's economic transition team, will launch a national TV ad campaign Sunday pushing for passage of the controversial Employee Free Choice Act.
American Rights at Work released its TV ad today. It will air nationwide on CNN, MSNBC, CNN Headline News, and locally on major network affiliates during Sunday talk shows, according to the group.
The group says it will launch a print and online ad campaign the following week.
The Employee Free Choice Act would allow workers to form unions without holding secret ballot elections, increase penalties on employers who violate labor laws, and mandate third-party arbitration when newly formed unions and employers cannot agree to initial contracts. The bill passed the House overwhelmingly in March of 2007, then fell nine Senate votes short of the 60 required to bring it to the upper chamber's floor.
Labor groups are hopeful they can push the bill through in 2009 with an expanded Democratic majority. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) was the only Republican to vote for the bill in 2007.
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