The Employee Free Choice Act, HR 800 and S 1041, is moving through Congress. The three main points of it are:
1. It strengthens financial penalties for companies that illegally coerce or intimidate employees in an effort to prevent them from forming a union;
2. It brings in a neutral third party to settle a contract when a company and a newly certified union cannot agree on a contract after 90 days;
3. It establishes majority sign-up, meaning that if a majority of employees sign union authorization cards validated by the National Labor Relations Board, the company must recognize the union.
For more info see the AFL/CIO site regarding the legislation. It looks like all of PA's Democratic representatives (plus Republican Tim Murphy) supported it. Sen. Casey has signed on as a co-sponsor. Sen. Specter has not. (h/t Mike in Chicago)
Full disclosure: I am a union member and have in the past and will be again this year, holding office in our local chapter.
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1 comment:
It's too bad this legislation does not address the make up of the NRLB.
Right now the way the NRLB membership is appointed, it's very easy for an anti-labor admin, like the current one, to stack the NRLB with its adherents. Bush appointed Eugene Scalia, the well-known anti-union and labor son of the US SC justice, as head of the board. Although he has since stepped down, how sympathetic do you think the NRLB was to labor while he was there?
The NRLB should consist of non-partisan labor lawyers or career civil servants who have no agenda except following the law.
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