CDW Letter to Members

CDW Members:

In an effort to show that the reported demise of card-check and government mandated binding arbitration have been much exaggerated, the White House has recently renewed its full support for Big Labor’s number one legislative priority, the Employee Free Choice Act.

Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden addressed the AFL-CIO’s winter meeting in Florida and told the attendees, “In the fight for EFCA, we’ve got to sit down and figure out where we go from here...I think we’re going to get it done.” You can read more here.

Last week, the White House’s “Middle Class Task Force” released its annual report for 2009. The report highlights EFCA as a tool for helping the “middle class,” stating:

“The Administration has supported the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) as a way to rebalance the union organizing playing field. In our policy work and events, as well as in various statements by the Vice President, the Task Force has consistently stressed the importance of EFCA as well. This support stems from our diagnosis that one underappreciated reason for the negative trends portrayed in our economic analysis of middle-class families is the loss of worker bargaining power.

Over the course of this year, the Task Force will continue to promote the benefits of union membership and to amplify the President’s message of the importance of EFCA as a way to guarantee workers who want to organize a fair chance to do so.”

You can access the Task Force’s report here.

While posturing by the White House and others won’t be able to produce 60 votes in the Senate, this renewed push by the Obama Administration reminds us that we’re not out of the woods yet and EFCA remains the top priority for Big Labor and its allies in Washington.

As legislative fly-in season draws near, we are strongly encouraging CDW members to keep EFCA at the top of your legislative agendas. Our talking points remain as simple as they have been for the past 3 years: We fully oppose card-check and government mandated binding arbitration, and there is no compromise on these issues.

Thanks to all CDW members for your continued good work on this issue.

Brian Worth

Independent Electrical Contractors, Inc

VP for Government and Public Affairs

WSJ article: The Senate rebels against Big Labor

The Regulator from SEIU

Before Snowpocalypse II hit Washington yesterday, the Senate squeezed in a brush back to President Obama and his friends at Big Labor. As the old saw goes, elections have consequences, and the one on the mind of legislators took place in Massachusetts last month.

Democrats Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln joined with Republicans to block cloture on a closely watched vote on the appointment of a lawyer for Andy Stern's Service Employees International Union to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board. As glaring was that only 52 Democratic Senators dared record their support for Craig Becker's nomination. (Continued)

Click here to read the entire article.

New CDW Ad

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CDW Letter to Senators

February 1, 2010

Dear Senator:

We write in opposition to the nomination of Craig Becker as a Member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), and we strongly encourage you to vote against his nomination, as well as against cloture on the related procedural motions. We are concerned that Mr. Becker will spearhead efforts to impose many aspects of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) through rulemaking and decisions, including attempts to promote card-check organizing and ambush elections.

The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace (CDW) consists of more than 580 business and trade associations united in our collective opposition to EFCA. EFCA would effectively eliminate secret ballot elections as a method for determining whether employees wish to join a union; replacing it with a card check a system, under which an employee’s private decision would be made public to employers, union organizers and co-workers. Further compounding the problems with EFCA, a study by noted economist Anne Layne Ferrar estimates that card-check will cost 600,000 American jobs a year. In short, EFCA deprives American workers of the ability to make a fully informed decision and exercise their right to vote in a secret ballot election without fear of intimidation or recrimination, while also resulting in job loss at a time we can least afford it.

We are concerned that, if confirmed, Mr. Becker will attempt to impose aspects of the Employee Free Choice Act through NLRB rulemaking and decisions. Recently, William Gould, NLRB chairman during the Clinton Administration, stated that the NLRB could issue a ruling that would impose card-check without any change to the law by Congress.

Mr. Becker currently serves as Associate General Counsel to both the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of Labor & Congress of Industrial Organizations, both of which adamantly support EFCA and card-check.

Moreover, throughout his career, Mr. Becker’s writings have revealed his extreme views about labor relations and the role of the NLRB. Among other things, Mr. Becker said that “employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives.” In other words, Mr. Becker argues that a union’s assertions during an organizing should not be discussed or challenged by employers, thus limiting employee access to critical information that should be part of the decision-making process. Much like the ability to vote in private, hearing both sides of the argument, from the union and the employer, is vital to the employees’ ability to make an honest and fully-informed decision.

If Mr. Becker is confirmed and he imposes aspects of EFCA and his other extreme ideas through NLRB rulemakings and decisions, both worker privacy and our economy could suffer. For the aforementioned reasons, we urged you to vote against Mr. Becker’s confirmation.

Sincerely,

THE COALITION FOR A DEMOCRATIC WORKPLACE

CDW Press Release on EFCA status

Big Labor Still Pushing Their Out-of-Touch Agenda

Union Bosses Ignore the Lessons from Massachusetts, Continue to Push EFCA

While politicians across the country are reassessing their agendas based on Tuesday’s rejection of big government and higher taxes by the voters in Massachusetts, the labor bosses in Washington remain committed to passing the jobs-killing Employee Free Choice Act..

Andy Stern, head of the SEIU, saw Tuesday’s election results as meaning that “every member of Congress and the Administration must act with a renewed sense of purpose to show working families whose side they are on and deliver meaningful change to every American.”

The Hill quotes an AFL-CIO source, regarding Senator-elect Scott Brown’s victory, “"If officials go running to the center like some are calling for, and away from what they campaigned on, they learned exactly the wrong lesson from this election."

Brian Worth, chairman of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, stated, "Despite yet another rejection of their job-killing agenda, Big Labor still demands that Congress pass the mis-named Employee Free Choice Act..”

"Shoving this unpopular, anti-worker bill down the throats of the American people is exactly the kind of thinking that compelled the people of Massachusetts to take this Senate seat away from Democrats for the first time in almost 40 years,” Worth continued.

CDW has released national polling that has consistently shown that the vast majority of voters, including those in union households, oppose job-killing proposals such as card-check and government-mandated binding arbitration. To view CDW’s research, please visit www.MyPrivate.Ballot.com.

Between a rock and hard place?

Obama supporters oppose bill that favors unions

Now enter the billionaires that supported President Obama's campaign. Even the President's finance chairperson, Penny Pritzker, who is a director of the Global Hyatt Corp., is opposed to the bill.....

Click here to read the full article.

EFCA's Bad 'RAP'

Nice!