AK, the reason that the pro-labor side is losing is that people keep thinking we can’t mean it when we say the other side is, flat-out, lying. You even accused me of lying about it.

Herewith my apology for that accusation, albeit late. (Like any normal human being, I had to be really sure I owed an apology before being willing to make it.)

As it happens, we were actually talking at cross-purposes. When I hear (or say) the words “secret ballot”, I’m talking about the Secret Ballot, an important principle of real democracy. Evidently, Maddow (and you) have used the term for the specific process currently mandated by law in unionization. The simple fact is that this bill will strip whatever protections of the Secret Ballot (principle) remain after the current process has been corrupted by the activities of employers. Granted, if 30% of the employees are willing to sign up for it they can still get an election, but since that sign-up process does not itself include a Secret Ballot, the field has been left open for coercion and intimidation (above and beyond what slips through via the abuses).

I suggest you start by looking at what leads up to a secret ballot on organization. Look at the timing and look at who has access to employees during that time. Then check into how much is paid for those unfair labor penalties. Imagine what that would look like added to people’s paychecks.

I’m not surprised that my research turned up a number of discussions of how the current process has been subverted, considering the arguments already made in this thread. I’d include many links, but it would just get my post stuck in the spam queue. The best (so far): Neither Free Nor Fair which includes a link to the general report. One generally quoted statement is that election conditions in a unionization vote are worse than what we see in elections in tyrannies abroad.

I certainly agree that this is something that needs to be fixed. I don’t agree that throwing out the baby with the bath is the answer. The answer, IMO, is to implement a mandatory timely election process where the abuses Dr. Lafer has documented have been forbidden.

Your parents were misinformed, or you mis-heard: drop the “mm”, replace with “t”, and you’ve got it.

Prof. L – I’m too lazy to dig harder, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate backs up my count: 41 certifi(ed/able) Repubs in our esteemed upper chamber, 56 Dems, 1 Independent, 1 “Independent Democrat”, 1 unresolved.

I work in “contract” archaeology required by various agencies and circumstances and there was a brief attempt to organize part of the Operating Engineers who run many of the backhoes and excavation equipment. It was to be called Local 141 after the length of the hypotenuse of a diagonal used to lay-out 1 meter by 1 meter squares for example, using two tapes. It was supposed to protect federal stated wages from misuse by employers who low-bid on federal projects but did not follow the federal contract requirements for payroll.

I wonder if the FBI used union operators looking for the current Teamsters president’s father, Jimmy Hoffa, whose release conditions, no return to politics, agreed to with President Nixon, he violated. I hope so, Teamsters also drive backhoes. My dad used to say the government ruined unions when they found mandatory meeting attendance “unconstitutional” and allowed the representative government structure into them, open to the same type of corruption the US government is susceptible to.

If you’re now ready to do that research, I suggest you start by looking at what leads up to a secret ballot on organization. Look at the timing and look at who has access to employees during that time. Then check into how much is paid for those unfair labor penalties. Imagine what that would look like added to people’s paychecks.

More recently, working as a systems person, my greatest impatience has been with management, but I don’t air my complaints on that subject very often, and wouldn’t do so here unless it contributed something to the discussion.

It’s your blog. I’ll shut up.

Huh???? What???? You should feel quite welcome to make your case!

I guess I misunderstood your “Nazis” reference. In fact, Himmler is generally credited with the (modern) statement of that principle (big lie), something I heard repeatedly from my parents who lived through WWII.

AK, you keep talking like this bill makes secret elections harder to get. In fact: (followed by long blockquote).

Very well, I stand (somewhat) corrected. But this point doesn’t come up in Maddow’s blather, it doesn’t even come up in your first link (that I saw, should I go back and look further?) I didn’t react to this video by fully researching the issue, because Maddow’s point was very clear: as long as a “choice” of secret ballot elections was present, the idea that the secret ballot principle was being undercut was a lie. I saw nothing in her discussion, and nothing in your first argument, to contradict that. (Thus the “somewhat”. I admit I should have researched it first.)

I still think it would be better to require the secret ballot up front, rather than require a 30% who object to go out on a limb by signing their names, and at least, they should be guaranteed anonymity.

This is simply not true, and at this point I would hope people more or less understand this. But, the very fact that this bald faced lie is central to the anti EFCA move belies the low moral standing of that position. The fact that many people don’t get this bespeaks not a valid alternative view, but rather, ignorance born of politically motivated misinformation and nothing more.

Not true. The primary cause is failure by supporters to trumpet the kind of argument Stephanie Z just linked to. If the precise logic of people’s arguments is addressed (say, by Maddow) rather than repeating vague statements, perhaps the Dem’s wouldn’t be “losing the PR war” on this one. (Just one sentence by Maddow regarding that 30% petition for recertification?)

Adding Nazis to the mix is just more of the same. Unjustified and despicable.

Not true. Saying that secret ballot elections enhance opportunities for coercion and intimidation still strikes me as double-speak.

the workplace election is not set up this way at all. Management has a number of tools that traditionally trump the tools available to labor, and given a bit of time it is not too difficult for management to turn what started out as a majority into a minority. This includes using this scary rhetoric like “The union dues will exceed your pay raises” that we are seeing on this very thread.

And don’t they sometimes? And don’t the promises by union organizers that they won’t sometimes turn out to get broken? Still, if this is a problem, I don’t see why the bill shouldn’t take steps to reform the way elections are managed, rather than providing a way to bypass them.

But yes, it is symbolic. The actual dynamics are tricky and it depends. On stuff.

Put it this way. This is like a baseball game. The number of votes one side or the other of sixty is base-ball score level, one or two or three. Franken is a guaranteed home run that simply is not going to happen for the Dems until Coleman backs off or the courts shut him down. It’s like hobbling the other team’s slugger every single inning. That sucks.

It’s probably actually more like a hockey game but I know nothing about hockey so I can’t throw around technical terms like “slugger” if I use the hockey analogy.

While Norm C can rightly be blamed for many things, in this case the political finger points to the ineptitude of Harry Reid (not to mention the obstructionist “Blue Dogs” who serve as his primary excuse, and the futile conciliatory policy of the White House).

The foundation of modern labor law is the Wagner Act of 1935 This law set up the way unions would be organized, and determined that the threshold would be a majority of workers in a workplace signing union authorization cards. Later, Management pushed through Taft Hartley (in the 1940s), which was vetoed by Truman but that veto was overruled. This gave management the right to ignore the union authorization cards and demand an election, supervised by the NLRB.

Now, with an election coming up, one would think that fairness would prevail, but that is not how it works at all. In a local, state, or federal election for regular office, all parties are on the same terms and there are rules that disallow the use of in place power structures. Sometimes this simply means that the President has to walk from the West Wing to the East Wing to make a fund raising phone call, but much of this regulation is, as they say, well toothed and effective. But the workplace election is not set up this way at all. Management has a number of tools that traditionally trump the tools available to labor, and given a bit of time it is not too difficult for management to turn what started out as a majority into a minority. This includes using this scary rhetoric like “The union dues will exceed your pay raises” that we are seeing on this very thread.