Free Republic

Today, only 7 percent of the private sector is unionized. Desperate to reverse that trend, President Obama’s two appointees to the National Mediation Board changed rules for airline and railway union elections in May and stacked the deck in favor of unionization. Both are former union bosses. As a result, in Delta Air Lines’ flight attendant workforce of 20,000, for example, if only 5,000 employees voted, and 2,501 of those employees say they wanted to join a union, the union would be certified to represent the entire workforce. The Obama appointees also changed the rules so there is no direct...

Now that the dust has settled from the conservative hurricane that blew across America Tuesday night we can begin to get into the fine points of how big this win actually was. Despite being smothered by the Democrat controlled media, one of the best things to come out of our victory is the death blow we dealt to Big Labor’s Employee Free Choice Act, (EFCA) scheme commonly known as Card Check. Under this blatant assault on our liberties, unions would be able to steal the secret ballot from America’s workers. This sneaky plot would have allowed union thugs to enter...

Big Labor is pouring money into two Democratic U.S. Senate races, attempting to secure a union pension bailout during a lame duck session of Congress. As previously reported on HUMAN EVENTS, new Federal Accounting Standards Board rules set to take effect on Dec. 15 threaten to shake up unions and the businesses entangled in multi-employer union pension plans that have been mismanaged and underfunded well before the 2008 financial upheaval. The economic downturn has only exacerbated the problem. Recent reports show hundreds of thousands of dollars in union cash pouring into races for Democratic Senate candidates Michael Bennet and Joe...

Organized labor is holding its nose and spending money to protect key Democrats in the Senate, hoping to create a bulwark to hold back Republicans in the House. But labor has abandoned 26 House Democrats who did not support the union agenda in the 111th Congress, leaving them to be pounded by corporate-funded third party groups. Two of the nation’s biggest labor unions, AFSCME and SEIU, have spent generously on independent expenditures to help Democratic House candidates. But Blue Dog Democrats and other Democratic centrists who did not support healthcare reform or the Employee Free Choice Act are facing a...

They won’t take no for an answer. So we have to give them both barrels again. On July 27, the Senate voted down the Democrats’ union-friendly, loophole-ridden, Orwellian-titled DISCLOSE Act. The bogus campaign finance reform bill was, as Sen. Mitch McConnell put it, a “transparent attempt to rig fall elections” that was written “behind closed doors” with help from lobbyists and riddled with political carve-outs for labor and other deep-pocketed organizations. Now, the hide-and-seek hypocrites on the Hill have resurrected their union pay-off. Priorities, you know. Hapless Harry Reid is leading the charge:

  In placing radical union lawyer Craig Becker on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) via recess appointment this past March, President Obama may have produced a more potent weapon to advance organized labor's interests than even he may have realized. In a 3-2 decision on August 27, the board voted to review its ruling of three years ago, Dana Corporation [351 NLRB No. 28 (2007)], which granted dissenting workers the right to undo a successful (i.e., employer-recognized) union card check campaign. The board thus has given unions some new ammunition for realizing its top priority of forcing, and...

During a backyard event with some supporters in Fairfax, Va., today, President Obama conceded something that all observers of Big Labor politics in Washington have known for a while: “Card check” legislation is dead. But he told supporters of the law not to worry since the administration has other ways of doing this: Frankly, we don’t have 60 votes in the Senate. So the opportunity to actually get this passed right now is not real high. What we’ve done instead is try to do as much as we can administratively to make sure that it’s easier for unions

Having failed to pass the legislation they want, union bosses turn to the executive branch.After spending over a billion dollars to elect Barack Obama president and Democratic majorities to Congress in 2008, Big Labor thought it had bought enough support to ram through a “card check” bill that effectively eliminates secret-ballot votes for unionization and lets federal bureaucrats dictate contracts to employees and employers. But despite an intense, union-boss-backed lobbying campaign, attempts to pass card check stalled as elected officials felt the heat from voters, who are overwhelmingly against the bill. With a vote on the legislation unlikely between now...

The anti-business agenda of Obama and the Democrats is a major factor. The only way a job is created is for someone to risk their money to start or expand a business. Anyone considering that must look at current and future economics. That look shows an increasing level of financial risk and headaches as Obama keeps pushing for higher taxes, higher energy costs, more regulation and more forced unionism. Obama Care has a new accounting nightmare, that requires a 1099 for all financial business transactions over $600... Obama is still pushing for the card check bill, which eliminates the secret...

Among the tidbits buried in the first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report of U.S. Human Rights issues was the section excerpted (starting on page 6) below. The Obama administration has declared unionization a human right and indirectly equated it to freedom of speech, freedom of religion and other normal human rights. 23. Freedom of association also protects workers and their right to organize... Workers regularly use legal mechanisms to address complaints such as threats, discharges, interrogations, surveillance, and wages-and-benefits cuts for supporting a union. These legal regimes are continuously assessed and evolving in order to keep pace with a modern...

The president and his administration that was suppose to unite America has divided our nation. They have pitted states against states, the federal government against states and now the federal government has sold us out to the international community for misplaced scrutiny and scorn to the U.N. Human Rights Council. The Arizona law mirrors almost verbatim, well settled federal law with regard to immigration law and enforcement. If the Arizona law is a violation of “human rights,” then surely the federal law is as well as is Mexico’s law and I suspect many other nations' immigration laws. It is despicable...

During C-SPAN Newsmakers interview (8-8-10), AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka comments on the importance of the Employee Free Choice Act, saying "it's part of the solution to creating an economy that really does work for everybody." He also said he thinks EFCA will be back on the floor by the end of the year.

Washington (CNSNews.com) – President Barack Obama, seeking to rally support for embattled Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections, on Wednesday pledged his support for a card check bill, which would eliminate secret ballots in elections to unionize workplaces. Obama told the AFL-CIO Executive Council that his administration has taken many measures to help union workers and move the beleaguered economy in the right direction.  “We passed the Fair Pay Act to help put a stop to pay discrimination,” Obama told the union leaders gathered in Washington on Wednesday. “We’ve reversed the executive orders of the last administration that were designed to...

Just headline so far. Did you really think Mad Dog Pelosi would rest? Awaiting similar news from Reid.

Trying to reclaim some of the excitement among unions who helped him win election in 2008, President Obama on Wednesday implored members of the AFL-CIO to be patient with the pace of the recovery and warned them they and the economy would suffer far worse under Republican rule. "I'm sure you're talking to a lot of your locals, I'm sure they're feeling like, 'Boy, change has not happened fast enough,' " he said. "I am happy as president of the United States to take responsibility for making decisions that are going to put us in a stronger position down the...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) addressed the Communications Workers of America, reaffirming her commitment to passing EFCA: “Of course we are committed in our party and we passed over and over again and we hope that it will be the law of the land soon, the Employer Free Choice Act.” Union pressure to pass EFCA, or the card-check bill, began in earnest over a year ago, but the legislation– at the time– took a back seat to the health-care reform and “cap-and-trade” energy bill debates. Under the proposed legislation, if union organizers can get a majority of workers to sign...

The Hill is reporting that Iowa’s leading Democrat, Senator Tom Harkin, is promising that the lame-duck Senate will again take up Big Labor's favored Employee Free Choice Act, (EFCA), the famous card check act that is neither good for employees nor one that facilitates "free choice" of any kind. Apparently, what's bad for the nation is easier to push when Democrats already feel that the 2010 election will erase their giant majorities in Congress so they want to launch a last ditch effort to sneak this through before the people can speak at the ballot box. And isn't that just...

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) suggested Thursday that Democrats might attempt to move "card-check" legislation this year, perhaps during a lame-duck session. Harkin, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, strongly disputed that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, or "card-check") was dead in the Senate. "To those who think it's dead, I say think again," Harkin said on the liberal Bill Press radio show. "We're still trying to maneuver," the Iowa Democrat added, explaining that if Democrats can't move the bill in its entirety, they might try to pass key parts of the union-organizing legislation...

Isn’t it so satisfying to see a schoolyard bully get knocked flat on his back? Last week’s Arkansas Democrat Senatorial primary gave us just that image to savor. The Big Labor thugs and criminals took it on the chin and their attempt to bully and blackmail Blanche Lincoln failed. The sin Lincoln had committed is her failure to back Labor’s scheme to use the power of the federal government to force unwilling workers to join unions through all but rigged voting without benefit of the secret ballot. We won the showdown Lincoln is an opponent of the deceptively named Employee...

Business groups opposed to “card-check” legislation declared victory after Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s win in a Democratic primary in Arkansas. Unions had worked hard to defeat Lincoln, who opposed legislation that would have allowed unions to form if a majority of members signed cards indicating their intention of wanting union representation. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was the No. 1 issue for unions in this Congress. “A massive investment on the part of union bosses, which they will not be able to duplicate in other races, resulted in a loss for Big Labor’s poster-child candidate, producing a general election where...