The framing problem here is that the corporate spin of "why do unions hate secret ballots?" may be bullshit, but it's a good sell.

Now, ads that show forced anti-union meetings, boss intimidation, firing union organizers etc. might have an impact, because it's not as if "shitty, overbearing boss" is a difficult for most Americans.

And while we're talking framing, say it's "unscrupulous" employers using intimidation tactics to deny workers their rights, not "mean" or "unfair" employers. Use moral deficiency as the accusation.

"who surveyed hundreds of organizing campaigns and found:"

What amazing stats from one side of a political debate. These OPINIONS and a dime you would have ten cents, congrats!

It's more data than anti-EFCA partisans have offered, Nate.

Not that that's a hard threshold to reach, considering that starting from zero you've already reached it.

...but companies aren't democracies.

Glad to see Ezra picking up on this issue (he was all gung ho for EFCA not long ago). With hope, Labor can rework its roll out before more serious damage is done.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but what I think Ezra is pointing to is that quibbling over EFCA is like negotiating the size of the rope used to hang you.

A major problem that underlies labor law and labor relations is the Taft-Hartley Act which stripped unions of most of their powers. In vetoing it in 1947 (veto overridden), President Truman quipped it should have been called the Slave Labor Act.

As long as we have draconian labor laws on the books, nibbling around the edges with things like EFCA just diverts energy from pushing for real reform.

I'm not sure I agree with the following:

"The argument is over the particular characteristics and implications of card check -- the proposed solution. But you hear very little about the underlying the problem. This is the opposite of how most reform battles go, where there's a focus on the problem"

Yes, this is how reform is supposed to happen - a focus on what the problem is and how to find a solution. But I don't think that there's anything in this battle - and by battle, we mean intense resistance by conservative institutions - that we haven't seen before.

The fight for universal health care has "socialized medicine", the proposed solution, as the counterargument. The fight for medicare had intense resistance in the conservative community for similar reasons. Even for social issues like gay marriage, conservatives point to an "apocalyptic" future where gays would be able to freely marry instead of the current one where they don't have equal rights.

Focusing on a solution and its faults is a classic political trick. I don't think that there's something backwards about the EFCA battle, it's just what we've seen all along.

And I simply don't understand the problem with card check. You want anonymity? Fine. Let's implement an anonymous version of card-check. The cryptographic folks can surely come up with a good solution that lets you anonymously "sign" a card. Not a hard problem. By focusing on the problem, rather than the solution, we might even be able to come up with a non-controversial compromise.

hmm.. yes Im sure you can get accurate statistics regarding which businesses are performing illegal acts for your little study when wanted.

Ring - Ring 'Yes could you please tell me how many of your accountants are embezzling from the company?' ... 'Do you practice any or all of the following illegal labor policies? a. ...'

Same with any illegal meetings, and/or firings.

The problem is both sides are really beating, shunning, and coercing workers to benefit their own ends. Unions didnt get a reputation for sending out thugs for no reason. The things is they are now a business just as much as the corporations themseves. They have employees whose sole job it is to sit in an employers lunch room and hand out flyers. They have others whose sole purpose is to follow employees around who havent paid their dues.

Many workers.. and I dont mean just a general many I can include at least 10 of my own personal friends only pay dues because if they didnt they would lose their jobs. That isnt choice. ..oh yes under federal law you dont have to pay your dues.. just an amount equal to them to an 'administrative fund' /scoff. Its still money out of their paycheck, and for most they gain nothing from it.

Those who want to be in unions should be allowed to be. Those who dont want to, should be allowed to stay out. Lets put the freedom back into this supposedly free country.

The things is they are now a business just as much as the corporations themseves.

Isn't that the point? That workers should be able to compete on an equal level with corporations by forming unions?

They have employees whose sole job it is to sit in an employers lunch room and hand out flyers. They have others whose sole purpose is to follow employees around who havent paid their dues.

Sure, I might not always appreciate the work that HR staff does and all of the people who organize those "team building" exercises do, but I appreciate that on some level their work (although it's ultimately "overhead") adds value to the corporation. Why aren't you complaining about all of them?

That isnt choice. ..oh yes under federal law you dont have to pay your dues.. just an amount equal to them to an 'administrative fund' /scoff. Its still money out of their paycheck, and for most they gain nothing from it.

Actually, what they gain from it is a job where they are paid with union benefits and wages. The funny thing is that they could take a job where they didn't even have to pay administrative fees, except for the fact that this job would be non-union and thus pay less, taking even more money out of their pocket. It's kind of funny how people complain about the expenses involved with the job that wouldn't exist if those expenses weren't charged in the first place, isn't it?

I don't know a single union worker who thinks unions have a reputation for sending out thugs. The only people who claim that are management, right wing politicians, and Hollywood screenwriters.

Maybe you shouldn't develop your view of reality from the Soprano's...

Here is the SEIU-UHW accusing Andy Stern of running a sham election:

http://www.seiu-uhw.org/
UHW members delivered over 125,000 protests in opposition to Andy Stern’s sham vote on local union jurisdiction for healthcare workers in California.

This is from the CNA website:
http://tinyurl.com/6jzh9r
For Immediate Release
April 12, 2008

RNs Condemn Violent Service Union Attack at Michigan Event - Hundreds of SEIU Staff Bused in to Smash Into Meeting to Attack RNs and Break Up Conference on Union Democracy

The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee tonight condemned a brutal assault by busloads of purple cloaked staff of the Service Employees International Union who smashed into a conference of union members Saturday night in Dearborn, Mi. and physically assaulted women and union members who stood in their path.

"I am deeply concerned about this heightened attack on women and nurses, directed by SEIU President Andrew Stern," said CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, who was scheduled to speak about the campaign for genuine healthcare reform at the banquet.

As much as I thought I was aware of the poor state of unions in the USA I was surprised to read in the last chapter of Thomas Geoghegan's book, Which Side Are You On, that blocking union organizing is a simple, standardized process performed by hired hands who traffic in routinely breaking the law.

At any whisper of a certification campaign management simply fires the leaders (never more than 1, or at most 2, out of 20). Said leaders then automatically file for reinstatement which is automatically granted them -- 4 years later -- with back pay which is automatically granted -- minus any wages they earned anywhere else -- after which 80% are fired again for "legal" reasons this time within the year.

IOW, there is no effective right to organize labor under US law -- only the right to ask for your employer's permission to organize.

I would argue that the current legally prescribed labor organizing process violates the First Amendment right to assembly by forcing all organizing effort down an automatically (if the employer so wishes) blocked path.

This is tricky. Commercial speech is protected but less so than political speech. I can see the right to organize for the purpose of wage bargaining being recognized as protected commercial assembly (would be a new concept) which is protected even if less so than political assembly.

This gets trickier. The current legally prescribed organizing process does not directly prohibit organizing -- but steers all organizing activity into a narrow channel which is impossible to navigate against simple, standardized technique practiced by the opposite commercial interest.

It is not as if labor has any other forum or venue in which to pursue organizing. The law prescribes ONE path and one path only -- and it is IMPOSSIBLE to negotiate said path if the opposite interest desires not.

The card check bill is indispensable for one reason and one only: it is all we've got.

Geek America (mostly boys -- we will get to this) has to thank some labor lawyer somewhere who happened to notice the card check provision in the early twentieth century legislation -- or, I suppose, geek America would not know what to be for at all.

What to be for is the UPSIDE-DOWN version of what Repubs are attempting to sick on the UAW this week: sector-wide labor agreements. The Repubs wish unionized workers to to work under terms accepted by NON-unionized workers. It is done the OTHER WAY around, starting in French-Canada, out to most modern OECD labor markets, even to second world (Argentina) and third world (Indonesia for crying out loud) markets.

Ever hear a word in America's national debate about the one common sense answer to the race to the bottom used almost universally in some "lite" (French) or "heavy" (German) version.
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Here is how I think geek males are undone by their pea-sized midbrains (A.K.A., limbic system, A.K.A., seat of human emotions) -- wherein their BOY HUNTER GROUP instincts control what they are willing to think about:

In boy (not girl) group discussions, boys (not girls) feel an all controlling imperative to produce a piece of meat (a kill) today. They will not take up for discussion anything so big that some kind of consensus (a piece of meat, no matter how small) can be had today.

Also, boy geeks (not girls) internally interlock their forebrain knowledge, what everybody already knows, while on the hunt -- and on the hunt is not the time to come up with new ideas! -- including on the hunt for new ideas. New technique talk come before or after the hunt. Except they are never before or after -- even alone in the library at one in the morning -- they are always interlocking their imaginations with what they know all the other boys (already) know.
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The Rebups are now pushing UPSIDE-DOWN sector-wide pay and it looks like they could make it stick (even though Keynes warned against cutting pay in a downturn). WHEN WILL PROGRESSIVES WAKE UP? (I mean to shout -- I wish I could should louder.)

"I don't know a single union worker who thinks unions have a reputation for sending out thugs. The only people who claim that are management, right wing politicians, and Hollywood screenwriters."

Huh. My dad was a member of the united rubber workers union for over 40 years. The stories he has told me of "thuggery" would make you rethink your rose colored view of the unions. He and his friends have told me war stories of imtimidation and sabotage of non-union workers and businesses that serviced Firestone, especially during strikes. Scabs went thru hell, during and after strikes. Many of these men had to support their families and were forced to cross the picket lines in order to put food on the table for their families, yet they were intimidated and ostracized. The fact that my dad was in the union helped put me through college. But if my dad worked at Nissan or other non union auto manufacturers today, he'd still be able to afford to help put me through college today.

I have good memories of being on the picket line during strikes when I was a little kid. It was like a get together. Beer, peppers and sausage that my mom would make and cold days hanging with my dad and his friends in front of the plant. It was festive, lots of food, drink and card playing. But the union, much like affirmative acion, has outlived it's usefulness. The unions have gone from giving labor a fair wage to crippling the companies they work for. The unions have improved the standard of living for the middle class in this country, but the purpose has been served and those companies that are unionized are at a severe disadvantage to their competitors. The labor movement has come a long way from the days of "The Jungle".

Why would the unions be opposed to a similar compensation package to those foreign auto manufacturers with plants in the US? Especially when their employer is on the brink of going out of business. These companies have to go to the fed gov't for money or else they will go out of business, yet the union refuses to make any significant concessions to help keep the companies afloat. The union culture also perpetuates less productivity by making it very difficult for companies to get rid of incompitent or unproductive workers. I mean hell, if Joe can can take a nap every night on the job and not get fired, why should I bust my ass and do a good job? It doesn't matter that the unions are trying to maintain the rather good standard of living that their members enjoy, if the company goes out of business, the union members pleasant lifestyles will be reduced to survival.

The non union auto manufacturers in the US are profitable and don't need a gov't handout to survive, yet the unionized auto companies need gov't assistance. What is the difference? The unions.

The EFCA would allow union organizers to know who was for and against union oranization in a paricular plant. What purpose would that serve other than to give organizers the ability to injtimidated and coerce workers to suppot the union?

I would think liberals would support a right to privacy, after all, it is no one's business who or what an individual votes for or against. Haven't liberals fought against voter coercion and intimidation at the voting booth since the 1960s?

I would think liberals would support a right to privacy

Maybe. But I think that employers would be opposed to such a thing, and I think that you and Republicans lack the balls to crack down on employers who would violate the privacy of workers.

The problem, first and foremost, is that companies have been acting like a group of union-busting thugs, threatening the livelihoods of workers and their ability to put food on the table while breaking the law. abg, until you and people like you have anything to say about that, then frankly I have no interest in any of your complaints about the unions. Companies hold the purse strings and their say-sio affects the ability of workers to pay their rent and make sure they don't get foreclosed on, and they feel like the law is not a factor when it comes to their anti-union activities. Nothing else matters, not a bit. All of the anti-union propaganda is just whining and bleating from a bunch of right-wing suck-ups who think that attacking unions makes them seem "cool" to their professional republican friends.

Many of these men had to support their families and were forced to cross the picket lines in order to put food on the table for their families, yet they were intimidated and ostracized.

Hey, abg, yoy know what prevents people from putting food on the table for their families? Being fired. I don't see you bitching and complaining about companies doing that to workers who want to form a union, so pretty much the rest of your rant is hard to take seriously-- you're too weak to get angry and companies who are attacking workers trying to put food on the table by firing them for the sin of wanting for form a union. It's pretty rich, and sort of dishonest for you to claim you give a damn about workers' interest by screeching about how unions have outlived their usefulness. If you can't stand up to anti-union thugs who prevent workers from putting food on the table by firing them (and compares this to "ostracizing"), then I pretty much am assured that you can't depend on looking out for workers interests.

The question on my mind has always been-- why are the right-wing rank-and-file such cowards? abg bitches about the "union thugs" who would "ostracize" other workers, but he's too weak-kneed and cowardly to attack employers who fire workers and make sure they don't get a paycheck for supporting the union.

If Republicans are all this weak and cowardly, why should workers support them?

abg,

There is a good theoretical free market (at least fair market) rationale for legally banning scabs once and for all; to wit:
Ownership's default bargaining position is that of indispensable "last lot" seller and labor's default position is desperate "fire sale" seller. This is simply a matter of relative numbers -- if somehow there were 10 employers for every employee the reverse would hold.

A union moves labor up to equally indispensable "last lot" position by forcing ownership to negotiate with its current employees and not with just anyone passing by on the street. Scabs of course undermine the entire rationale for having unions in the first place. (Labor's utility is best measured by the highest value it can command.)

Under the German "heavy" version of sector-wide labor agreements I believe scabs are impossible because all employees performing similar tasks must work under a common contract. No contract, can't work I assume. I doubt scabs are resorted to in any other modern OECD economies.
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Which gets us to the point about unions supposedly CRIPPLING THEIR EMPLOYERS COMPETITIVENESS. What you are talking about is the race to the bottom. Can you imagine non-union firms being required by law to pay the wages and benefits negotiated by unionized firms?

Sound mad; crazy? Probably does to an American but it is the standard practice in most OECD economies (e.g., French Canada -- card check been practiced in all of Canada for decades), many second world economies (e.g., Argentina) and even some third world (e.g., Indonesia). In short it is the common sense path to labor getting paid the maximum its utility can command instead of getting the minimum it can be squeezed down to -- in use everywhere and never even discussed here.

Wal-Mart was just crippled in Germany by union pay and benefits -- that is, the union pay and benefit levels agreed to by competition stores -- and ended up pulling 88 big boxes out. Couldn't compete by giving the German consumer what they wanted; couldn't compensate by paying their workers half as much. Nobody shed a tear even though unemployment is always higher there (which I would blame on over regulation, can't fire once you hire, and automatic welfare if you are out of work).

If (worst assumption) Honda and BMW really make better cars than Detroit, then, both would have no problem making a good living paying the same pay and benefits as Detroit. How about equalizing pay the other way around (smarter move in a recession, too)? Honda would have been happy to pay the same pay as the price for entering our manufacturing market.

The most obnoxious fact about how the anti-labor side has turned this debate around the secrete ballot is that how they managed to obscure the fact that under current labor law there does exist the card check option - for the bosses. EFCA would give the choice over to employees.

Part of the argument for increased unionization is increasing political power for the working class, because the corporate elite isn't interested in going all that far to help the middle class.

Sweeden and Denmark aren't social-democratic bastions are becuase Scandnavians are more socially conscious. It's because the ruling class became deeply divided during the depression and the labor movement through local socialist parties developed a dominate political role in their respective countires.

I realize that the tagline for The American Prospect is "liberal intelligence" but c'mon! You should still do your homework on EFCA. First, the "survey" was of union organizers, not "organizing campaigns." NLRB statistics show a much lower rate of anti-union firings in campaigns (perhaps 1 in 100). NLRB stats also show that unions win about 60% of elections, that this rate has been on the rise for years, and that elections happen very quickly after a petition is filed (94% are held within 56 days, as I recall). So EFCA is not about fixing a broken system; the system is the same as it's been for 70 years (during which time unions at one point enjoyed a 35% denstiy rate in the private sector). EFCA is a bail out, designed to fix a problem -- low membership -- but the problem is largely the fault of organized labor itself. As a labor attorney I could tell you stories, but suffice to say that many, many educated workers in this country want nothing to do with unions. Like the U.S. automakers, unions need to focus on offering a better product. Even a monumental bail-out like EFCA won't save big labor in the end unless it adapts and, frankly, stops blaming everyone else for its woes.

pmoser, anti-union attorney,

What you say is a bald lie -- and I invite anyone to read the last chapter of Thomas Geoghegan's (a pro-labor attorney) book Which Side Are You On to find out just how much of a bald lie.

I think perhaps what's needed is another proposed solution that makes EFCA look moderate. Since it's unlawful to fire people for union activity, and the intent of doing so is to extort money or services from the rest of the workers at that establishment, it seems plausible to me that anywhere an organizing-relating firing is alleged the DoJ should start investigating with an eye to a RICO prosecution of managers. You might need an amendment or two of the current code to make this bulletproof; since economic strength and decent wages are ultimately a matter of national security, the investigative procedures should probably be modeled on those in the PATRIOT Act.

paul,

You really might have something there. RICO prosecution has been tried (and failed) against illegal interference with abortion clinics. Might as well give it a run against union breaking specialists who specialize in training managements in how to break the law. Be a great education for the public if all else fails.