Although I think there are many reasons to be optimistic about Solis as Labor Secretary, the EFCA is not one of them. Not because it's not a good piece of legislation (it is), but because it has absolutely nothing to do with the Department of Labor. The National Labor Relations Act, which the EFCA would amend, is enforced by the National Labor Relations Board, not the Department of Labor.

Not to be confused with the above poster, but I've used the monkiker "laborlawyer" here for several years:)

It's a great pick for us. I'm from California and know her quite well. Hilda has been a solid friend of labor on every major issue.

And it doesn't matter which agency enforces EFCA. Having a Secretary of Labor unequivocally committed to its passage is a crucial indicator of how much political muscle the Obama administration will put into the lobbying effort.

I could not be more pleased.

Oh yeah, I remember Marty Martinez -- total douchebag. Sort of the Al Wynn of his time.

EFCA is a terrible idea. The reason the unions want it is because they know it will make it incredibly difficult for employees who don't want to join a union to vote no due to pressure from their pro-union co-workers. Who in my experience aren't exactly shy to begin with. What's wrong with the current practice of using a secret ballot? The secret ballot is a pillar of democracy. EFCA will be the only time I'm going to celebrate a Republican filibuster, but I'll do it. Unions are not part of the solution any more as evidenced by all of the places where unions are really powerful (see: UAW, teachers unions, corrections officers). Why should we make it easier for the unions to muscle into shops and put public pressure on employees?

The current practice allows employers to intimidate workers into submission. Secret ballots don't work well when the ruling party controls the electorate, their employment, and the space in which people speak/associate.

Justin Case- Do you remember what life was like before unions? Why is the UAW the scape goat for the Big Three? Why are we yelling and screaming for workers who make less than $10 more per hour than their counterparts to take pay cuts and turning a blind eye to Wall Street execs making 10s of millions of dollar and are still getting bonuses with tax payer bail out money??

Unions are not only part of the solution, they are fundamental to a healthy economy and creating a thriving middle class.

Not to offend Justincase, but you are going to lose any arguement about labor where you try to make unions such as the SEIU, UAW or Teachers unions as some kind of boogey-man as the bad guy for labor. From my perch in American the unions have simply been fighting a losing battle against big business and government over the last 30 years. Reagan went after the unions and Clinton like Bush sought the advice of the Chamber of commerce and lobbyist in the business community. The reason we have a failed education system simply has little to do with Teachers who are part of the union, just like the UAW has nothing to do with the failures of the big three. I understand you can make a competative analysis argument of the big 3 versus foreign auto companies but most reports exclude the kinds of subsidies which foreign auto companies recieve from the states and those from their country of origin. But the big three are cheifly in trouble because of management failures just like it is a red-herring to assume that our schools are failing because our teachers simply fail to make the grade. Most teachers do their jobs and do them fine, yes some need to be fired but I emphasize again that Teachers are not the reason our schools have failed and UAW did not cause the big 3 to sign contracts they could not own up to.

Having a Secretary of Labor unequivocally committed to its passage is a crucial indicator of how much political muscle the Obama administration will put into the lobbying effort.

I worry that picking someone well-known and well-liked by labor is Obama's way of inoculating himself when he doesn't spend a lot of capital trying to force EFCA through.

I hope you're right, and maybe you are since it sounds like you know more about labor politics than I do.

But I just have this nagging feeling that Obama sees issues like EFCA as reeking of raw, old-style, interest- group politics, the kind that doesn't jibe with his can't-we-all-get-along way of looking at the world.

I suspect many Democrats are skittish about sticking their necks out for labor -- beyond talking points/lip service -- ever since the 2002 GOP demagoguery-fest over labor rights at the (then) new Dept. of Homeland Security.

To clarify, while raising the minimum wage, for example, can be perceived as a broad-based working-class benefit...EFCA and the DHS shitshow involve labor rights qua labor rights in a way that appears to be pure payoff for PAC checks.

Sorry to disagree. But I do. Unions did a lot of good in the past, but not any more. We now have laws that accomplish much of what union contracts used to. Now, unions just push wages an benefits beyond sustainable levels, keep incompetents in their jobs, and reduce productivity through inane work rules.

The teachers union means that tenure is a near-automatic function of time in the job, instead of excellence in performance. This means we give lifelong positions to the mediocre and excellent alike. In times like these, when education funds are low, teachers are also fired solely as a function of seniority. We lose a lot of quality educators that way.

The graduate student employees were unionized while I was at getting my Ph.D. They just took money out of my paycheck and pestered me and my friends to strike against the university when it had no money to deal. My wife got tons of pressure - often unpleasantly so from union advocates - to vote pro-union at Delta. Instead, the pilots union cost the company billions and helped send them into bankruptcy.

I'm not absolving management of a lot of responsibility here. But more and more powerful unions are not the solution. It's no accident that the sectors of our economy that are thriving are the least unionized.

To underscore what easy said, I bring you this news flash from January 1993:

"President-elect Clinton today announced Robert Reich as his pick for Labor secretary. Liberal activists and labor unions were ecstatic. 'Reich is a real progressive - he gets it,' said whoever was in charge of SEIU back then. 'This pretty much ensures that Clinton will never fight for really regressive, anti-labor laws like the free-trade agreements that conservatives are always pushing. No way that stuff passes now. Nuh-uh. Nah gah happen.' Commentators who would one day work at sometime called The American Prospect were likewise thrilled, saying 'this is a real signal of Clinton's commitment to serious change and progressive activism. Reich will be extremely influential in this administration, and it's totally fine if that doesn't happen right away because the Dems will definitely control Congress for the next eight years, mark my words.'"

I will change my "name" to prevent confusion. :)

I agree it will be great to have a Labor Secretary committed to the EFCA's passage (if only for what it signals), but I really don't want her to spend much effort -- if any -- promoting it. There is way too much for the Secretary of Labor to do that involves actual Department of Labor activities.

Whatever happened to the ergonomics standard? Can it be brought back?

Which came first: Harold Meyerson's "thoughts" above, or the Wikipedia article on Solis?

If anyone wants the non-kneepad version, here's my summary of Hilda Solis chock full of information that Meyerson will never tell you.

"said whoever was in charge of SEIU back then"

That would be John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, FYI.

I also fail to see how getting rid of secret ballots is such a great idea. If managements "intimidate workers into submission," then THAT is where our remedies should be focused. We shouldn't set up a system for COMPETING intimidation!

And the other reason why this seems to be a terrible idea is that progressives are giving the right-wing a great propaganda victory. Yes, when THEY can stand up for secret ballots and against intimidation, it's simply a gift to our opponents.

Offhand, I'd say this is an incredibly stupid idea, and I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation for it. Is there one?

djh,
Actually my memory is that Sweeney was elected in 1995. It was Lane Kirkland in 1993.

Sorry to break the news, but unions are nothing more than monopolies on labor. They either take more than they're entitled to or give less than they're expected to. They also foreclose on competition, which is why unemployment is higher in more heavily unionized regions all over the world. I voted for Obama, but in an era where we have labor regulation Unions only enrich themselves and don't help members of the middle class who aren't in unions. Facts are facts.

To Economist and justincase:
Facts are facts:
Fact 1. wages are higher for both union and non-union workers in unionized areas.
Fact 2. more unionized workers have have health insurance and retirement benefits
Fact 3. Union workers push for health and safety regulations that ultimately benefit all workers.
Fact 4. There is a monopoly on capital as well, whether implicit or explicit. How can individual workers effectively bargain with that without a union?
Fact 5. "secret ballot" elections are a sham where bosses routinely fire and intimidate union activists and violate labor laws with impunity.
Fact 6. We are experiencing a capital strike right now that is driving the economy over a cliff. Yet no one offers the remedy of breaking the stranglehold that owners have over the economy.

The commenter above has conflated "facts" with "stuff I learned from the University of Chicago economics department."

Fact 1. wages are higher for both union and non-union workers in unionized areas.

Perhaps, but unemployment is higher. How are jobs across the industrial northeast, and Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, etc?

Fact 4. There is a monopoly on capital as well, whether implicit or explicit. How can individual workers effectively bargain with that without a union?

This is silly. There's no monopoly on capital. People accumulate money and do interesting things with it all the time.

In a competitive environment, good workers have plenty of room to bargain, or go elsewhere. In today's world, unions create a false sense of security - we live in too dynamic an economy to think you'll be in one place or one job for a lifetime like previous generations. It's an outmoded way of approaching employment.

Fact 5. "secret ballot" elections are a sham where bosses routinely fire and intimidate union activists and violate labor laws with impunity.

I've heard this claimed but never read anything in a credible publication to support it. But I don't see how it follows that we should do away with entirely ballots and let unions pressure individual workers to sign that union card with impunity? Well, I guess as long as it's your side doing the pressing, it's OK. Or would you say unions would never abuse their power to lean on a few people to get another shop and more dues?

Here's a key fact: Unions hurt productivity - which is the fundamental engine of economic growth. They'd rather force a company to hire more people than produce things more efficiently. It's a fundamental problem, leads to a waste of people and capital.

I always find it interesting when union-haters post on progressive sites. The posts always start with something such as "I voted for Obama but...." I don't buy it for a minute. The union-busters are quite sophisticated, and "justin case", for example, simply repeats right-to-work talking points.

For those so concerned about the "sacred" secret ballot: Did you know that,right now, employers can withdraw recognition from a union based on signatures without an election? That's right, a secret ballot is required to GET a union, but not to GET RID of one. Why don't we ever hear any protests from EFCA opponents about that? Do you really need me to answer?

Current NLRB "elections" are a total scam. Employers can coerce emloyees into captive audience meetings and one-on-one sessions with "consultants" where they scare the hell out of them. Employees cannot refuse. Unions by contrast have no access to the worksite and employees can tell them to go to hell. Employers routinely violate laws against retaliation with little fear of retribution because the NLRB takes months to nvesigate and there are no effective remedies. Employers stretch out the certification process with years of frivolous challenges. It's a system Saddam Hussein would have loved.

For my fellow laborlawyer- of course you're right. A swift review of the Bush LMRDA regs would be a good starting point for Solis.

"justin case" writes:
I've heard this claimed but never read anything in a credible publication to support it.

Start here:

http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=reports

Also, it's not a "fact" that unions"hurt productivity". Many studies have shown his to be untrue. Start by googling the 1998 Scientific American studyshowing union workers to be 27 percent more productive. Or the study showing unionized COSTCO workers more productive than their nonunion counterparts at Wal-Mart.

Unions only mean lower productivity to the far-right propagandists who also sold us Reaganomics. It's a lie that won't wash anymore.

I think (the original) laborlawyer and I (umm, another one) can agree that contractual work rules CAN create situations that diminish productivity: the (qualified) person at hand is barred from doing what they're capable of doing, or someone is paid extra for what should be a normal element of their job.

OTOH, there are situations where union opposition to a management proposal forces adjustments to or a rethink of the originally barely-thought-through, half-baked management idea. In a non-union setting, the original (bad) idea would simply be imposed.

Like most things, its a mixed bag; but it surely can be said that unions stifle or spurn or diffuse or diffract managerial prerogatives--and that loss of control is, often, what management is most reluctant to relinquish.

I also agree with laborlawyer that the Bush LMRDA rules need a quick revisit.

But they shouldn't be allowed to go moribund again either. If I recall correctly, the original reporting requirement WAS $25. That is still a fairly reasonable standard, because it's now $238.14. Just keep inflating it.

We shouldn't all have to report a group lunch at Macaroni Grill or Joe's Crab Shack. A round of golf at a PGA course, or the company suite at the playoff game (a la Jack Abramoff) or the like, those SHOULD be reported: something more is going on there than just normal sociability.

I agree with both of "Dell's" posts. Union workplaces are inherently neither more nor less productive. I was simply countering the ideologically-driven claim that it is a "fact" that unions hurt productivity. In the unionized construction industry where I spend much of my time, employers are the sole judge of employee competency; we believe in productivity through well-paid, highly trained, experienced workforces.

And only a fool would defend corrupt practices; it's just that the Bush regulations are are intended to hamper and harass honest unions.

I agree with WCG. Let's attack the problem at its roots through reform of labor/mag laws and getting appointees to the NLRB who are sympathetic to labor. Let's end management abuses, and then see what happens if labor campaigns still fail. If and only then do we go for cardcheck. I think it's a very problematic initiative substantively and politically.

Afterall the goal is a truly playing field for union organizing. Card check circumvents a fair system of organizing.

majority rule does not circumvent fairness
majority rule is much more central to democracy than the secret ballot

EFCA is a totally anti-democratic measure and should never be passed. If there is a current statute or NLRB rule that allows management to withdraw union recognition based on signatures only with no secret ballot, then this should be changed to be fair.

I was born in the "late-great" Flint, MI, a classic "GM city". Both of my Grandfathers were charter members of the UAW and one was a sit-down striker in 1936, which forced GM to recognize the UAW. My Dad worked on the Buick line before joining the Marines in WWII. I have cousind who are retired white collar GM employees.
It is true that management at the Big 3 caused much of the industry's woes. Lack of proper fiscal management, piss poor future planning, and lousy marketing strategies are but a few of their blunders. But the UAW bears responsibility, too. In the mid-70's-early 80's, "line workers" were making more than (often 2X more) teachers, police, fire fighters, and nurses. This for a semi-skilled (admittedly dull and boring)
job that didn't even require a HS diploma. Plenty of blame to go around, I say.

As a small business owner, anyone who thinks a union environment does not hamper competitiveness is simply not dealing with reality. Unions by definition are anti-competitive and create a false economy that cannot survive the laws of nature and capitalism. The only unionized group who can survive are those the operate in a non-competitive world.(Govt employees)Not surprisingly these are also the areas of the government services that are the most idealogical and have the lowest approval ratings. It should be no surprise that union dominated industries and geographic areas are deteriorating at the quickest pace.

As a small business owner, anyone who thinks a union environment does not hamper competitiveness is simply not dealing with reality. Unions by definition are anti-competitive and create a false economy that cannot survive the laws of nature and capitalism. The only unionized group who can survive are those the operate in a non-competitive world.(Govt employees)Not surprisingly these are also the areas of the government services that are the most idealogical and have the lowest approval ratings. It should be no surprise that union dominated industries and geographic areas are deteriorating at the quickest pace.

As a small business owner, anyone who thinks a union environment does not hamper competitiveness is simply not dealing with reality. Unions by definition are anti-competitive and create a false economy that cannot survive the laws of nature and capitalism. The only unionized group who can survive are those the operate in a non-competitive world.(Govt employees)Not surprisingly these are also the areas of the government services that are the most idealogical and have the lowest approval ratings. It should be no surprise that union dominated industries and geographic areas are deteriorating at the quickest pace.

felix: Did it ever occur to you that the problem was not that auto workers made too much, but that teachers, police, fire fighters and nurses made too litte? It certainly occured to them, as you've just named four of the jobs where union density has increased the most in the last 30 years.

If it's the UAW's fault how do you explain the history of the plant in Fremont, CA? In the early 1980's, it was the worst, least productive plant in all of GM, highest abenteeism. The notorious Citation was built there. GM closed it. The plant then reopened as a joint GM/Toyota venture under Toyota management under a UAW contract- same workers, same wage structure. Under Toyota management it quickly became the most productive plant in North America. Today, the Toyota Corolla and Tacoma and Pontiac Vibe are made there, still under UAW contracts, three models consisently ranked at the top of Consumer Reports quality ratings. It is a profitable, high-wage, high-productivity plant. What changed? Your grandfathers could have told you in one word: Management.

Look, I'm not trying to be a jerk here, and I'm not some right-wing troll here to stir the pot. From what I've read and experienced, I have big concerns about the usefulness of unions in this day and age. I live San Francisco and work in tech; I know of no one in my field who works in union shop. I'd submit that our industry has done more to generate real wealth in the U.S. than any other in recent years, and I attribute a lot of that success to the fact that our field is tremendously performance-based. Those who tend to succeed are smart, reliable and work their asses off. Companies that succeed are smart and innovative and promote good people. And companies that aren't run well are abandoned by good people (e.g., the flight of talent from Yahoo! this year). This strikes me as the way things should be done.

In my earlier days, I also worked in manufacturing - building boats. Ours wasn't a union shop. I really enjoyed my work, did well, and was promoted quickly. We fired people who came in too hungover to work, and we kept as low-level laborers those who didn't have the desire or aptitude to do well. When I needed extra money I worked 60-hour weeks. All of these things would have been more difficult in a union climate.

I think these are real issues union proponents should not neglect. I also think that EFCA - if it's pushed for and fails - is handing the Republicans a potential huge win (and a propaganda coup either way). The potential value of it doesn't seem worth it to .

justin case: If you're not a right wing troll, get out from behind your parochial personal anecdotal experiences and learn about the crucial role unions play in making capitalism work proerly. Here's a good starting point, a paper by Prof. Harley Shaiken (who was one of the finalists for Secretary of Labor):

http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/unionpaper.pdf

Whether consciously or not, you have bought into the myths of right-wing economics that have brought our economy to the point of collapse. Try expanding your paradigm and learn how crucial labor law reform really is.

Oh great, someone who has a close relationship with Rahm Emanuel who made sure only pro-Iraq War "Democrats" got DNC funding, who is a nutty Zionist whose father was an Israeli Irgun terrorist. The Washington Post and New York Times both also mentioned that Solis is close to Nancy "Impeachment is off the table" Pelosi. Nancy "the war must go on" Pelosi. Wow, Pres.-elect Barack O'Bilderberg (or more accurately, his bourgeois handlers pulling the strings) sure can pick 'em.

OK. I'll check it out. But don't expect a prompt response when you send someone to read a 23 page PDF.

The myth about Contreras.Yes Solis is a great choice. Contreras was a fraud. of course unfortunate he is dead.
I knew him and worked with him in San Francisco and he usually sided with the owners.
He cared about himself and his power. I felt that he has no real concern about workers. If he were given a management position he would have thrived as well. Miguel had good political skills. Just happened that he advanced them after being trustee in LA. He was always an international HERE stooge very undemocratic. Miguel was for Miguel. My problem. Just someone who knew him way back knew that he often opposed workers and for his own advancement sided with management. So let's end the mythmaking.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here

And yet you're succeeding so well. You started out by asking "What's wrong with the current practice of using a secret ballot?" If you don't at least know what the arguments are, regardless of whether you agree with them, you're a blithering ignoramus whose opinions on the subject are worthless.

So... meh. this blog post is the first I've heard about the issue, and based on it and reading the Politico article I'd say it's the kind of thing to ask questions about (if Calderone didn't already know that there are a lot of off-the-record list servs around DC like you say, which come to think of it would be a big thing to be ignorant of), but the answers aren't newsworthy. Smoke but no fire.
I just hate seeing "leftists" act like William F Buckley and the National fucking Review. This is why the left has gone to shit, too many damn rich kids and their summer-camp habits brought into the political arena, instead of actual organizing.

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