August 7, 2009:NWLP
8/4/09
10:20 AM
Page 9
Senators try to filibuster-proof Employee Free Choice Act
A labor law reform long sought by
the union movement — the Employee
Free Choice Act — will have to wait a
little longer.
The U.S. Senate was expected to ad-
journ Aug. 7 until after Labor Day with-
out passing the bill. The Employee Free
ChoiceAct makes several changes to the
National Labor Relations Act to make it
easier for workers to unionize and get a
first contract.
The bill is considered assured of vic-
tory in the U.S. House, which passed it
in 2007, but in the Senate, backers need
60 votes out of 100 in order to prevent a
certain Republican filibuster. Democrat
Al Franken of Minnesota was supposed
to be that 60th vote. He was seated July
7, and made it his first act in office to
sign on as a co-sponsor of the bill.
The Employee Free Choice Act has
40 co-sponsors in the Senate and 226 in
the House; all Oregon and Washington
Democrats are co-sponsors.
But labor leaders now must hold their
breath that Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mas-
sachusetts) will return to health enough
to cast the 60th vote. Kennedy has brain
cancer, and hasn’t been to the Capitol
since April. In the event of his death,
Massachusetts will hold an expedited
primary and general election to choose
his replacement, which is considered
likely to be a Democrat. But that could
delay a vote three or four months.
Ninety-one-year-old Sen. Robert
Byrd (D - West Virginia) is also in ill
health, but if he dies in office or steps
down, a Democratic governor would
choose his replacement.
Meanwhile, union ally Sen. Tom
Harkin (D-Iowa) has led behind-the-
scenes talks to shore up support among
some conservative Democrats, by tenta-
tively agreeing to modify some parts of
the bill. A key part of the bill has been
requiring employers to recognize unions
on the basis of majority sign-up, also
CEOs receive more than
one-third of all pay in U.S.
A Wall Street Journal analysis shows
that more than one-third of all pay in the
U.S. now goes to executives and other
highly-paid employees.
Highly paid employees received
nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in
total U.S. pay in 2007, the latest figures
available. The compensation numbers
don’t include incentive stock options,
unexercised stock options, unvested re-
stricted stock units, and certain benefits.
The Wall Street Journal based its
analysis on Social Security Administra-
tion data, which doesn’t count billions
of dollars more in pay that remain off
federal radar screens that measure
wages and salaries.
According to Think Progress, be-
tween 1979 and 2006, the inflation-ad-
Q
justed after-tax income of the richest 1
percent of households increased by 256
percent, compared with 21 percent for
families in the middle income quintile.
Think Progress is part of the Center for
American Progress Action Fund, a non-
partisan progressive think-tank.
While U.S. worker productivity has
skyrocketed over the past 30 years,
wages have not kept pace.
“America’s working middle class
made it clear last November that they
wanted change — and reshaping the na-
tion’s economic framework to
strengthen the middle class and close
the wage disparity between the very top
and the rest of us, is fundamental to that
change,” said AFL-CIO blogger Tula
Connell.
known as card-check. Under the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act, an employer
can recognize a union if a majority of
workers signs cards requesting it, but the
employer can choose instead to have a
workplace union election. That election
is typically four to six weeks later, and
can be delayed further if the employer
files legal objections to how the pro-
posed bargaining unit is defined. During
the wait, employers often use their
power in the workplace to wage inten-
sive anti-union campaigns, which most
often include requiring workers to attend
anti-union meetings.
It now appears the price of bringing
along the conservative Democrats will
be amending the card-check provision
out of the Employee Free Choice Act.
The latest word is that card-check would
be replaced by a requirement that an
election occur within eight days. Legal
wrangling over who is eligible to join
would be resolved after the votes were
cast. An eight-day election cycle would
still grease the skids for pro-union work-
ers, but to make up for the loss of card-
check, union leaders are pushing behind
the scenes to add a provision to restrict
employers’ right to hold mandatory-at-
tendance anti-union meetings.
“The important thing is to preserve
the essential elements of the Employee
Free Choice Act, restoring the freedom
to organize and collectively bargain,”
said AFL-CIO Organizing Director
Stewart Acuff — not the details of how
exactly to achieve that goal. Acuff is di-
recting the campaign to pass the bill.
Harkin’s compromise bill may also
lengthen the timeline for binding arbi-
tration. The National Labor Relations
Act mandates that employers bargain
“in good faith” with unions to reach a
contract. But in practice, anti-union em-
ployers commonly stonewall in bargain-
ing, which gives anti-union workers a
chance to vote out the union after a year.
To overcome that, the Employee Free
ChoiceAct allows either party to request
federal mediation if no agreement has
been reached after 90 days of bargain-
ing. Then 30 days after that, at the re-
quest of either party, the contract would
be given to a neutral arbitrator to decide.
The arbitrator would pick a reasonable
contract, which would be binding for
two years.
Business opponents of the Employee
Free Choice Act — having won assur-
ance that the card-check provision will
be deleted from the bill — are now turn-
ing their attention to the binding arbitra-
tion provision, arguing that it would al-
low a federal bureaucrat to dictate how a
company should be run. In fact, the Em-
ployee Free Choice Act doesn’t impose
binding arbitration. One side — which
almost certainly would be the union –
has to request it. If both parties feel
there’s progress being made and a
chance of agreement, they can agree to
extend their own negotiations. The
union side would be expected to want a
say too, so in all likelihood, unions
would request binding arbitration only
when they felt they were unlikely to get
a reasonable first contract.
Harkin’s closed-door talks are con-
sidering changing that provision to 120
days for mediation, and 60 days after
that for arbitration.
Despite all the delays and setbacks,
union political staff in Washington,
D.C., say they are still confident the Em-
ployee Free Choice Act will pass this
year, in one form or another.
Rain Forest Boots
Made in America!
Try a pair on, you’ll like them.
Tough boots for the Northwest.
AL’S SHOES
5811 SE 82nd, Portland 503-771-2130
Mon-Fri 10-7:30 Sat 10-5:30 Sun 12-6
Quest
Investment
Management, Inc.
• } Serving
Serving Multi-Employer
Multi-Employer
Trusts for for
Twenty
Years
Trusts
Over
Twenty
Years
Greg
Sherwood
Adrian
Hamilton
Cam Johnson
Greg Sherwood
Adrian Johnson
Hamilton
Monte
Johnson
Monte
Doug
Goebel
Doug Goebel
Bill Worley
Zenk
Garth
Nisbet
Pat
Cam Johnson
One SW Columbia St., Suite
Suite 1100,
1100 Portland, OR 97258
503-221-0158
www.QuestInvestment.com
www.QuestInvestment.com
AUGUST 7, 2009
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 9