The Chamber of Commerce Responds and Obfuscates
| By Julia Rosen, Online Political Director - Mar 25th, 2009 at 7:18 am PDT |
| Also listed in: Courage Campaign Staff |
Pop quiz hot shot: when someone gets two options, and picks option A, does that mean that there was never a choice to begin with?
I know, I know, that question really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But then again neither does the response by the Chamber of Commerce to our email on the Employee Free Choice Act and Robert's blog post on Calitics about it. Here is the Chamber:
Yes, that's right. Workers would get to choose how or if they would like to unionize under the Employee Free Choice Act.
Option A 50% of workers sign a card saying yes I would like to join a union.
Option B the workers request a secret election.
If they choose Option A and 50% of the workers sign the cards, then they do not do Option B.
The Chamber is confused, because quite often workers have to do both A and B under the current law and that is what is wrong with current labor law, among other things.
Why do they do both you ask....well, often workers will sign the cards, but the bosses will not want to accept the fact that their workers want to join a union. The bosses decide at that point that they want a secret election. Those usually take months to set up, giving the employers time to hire union busting consultants, spend work time threatening their workers that if they vote to unionize then they will go out of business and all too often, fire workers who are helping organize a union.
The Employee Free Choice Act puts the decision making power into the hands of the employees, thus the name of the act. The end result is that workers will be able to more easily form a union when they want one. That power shift away from the corporations that make up the Chamber of Commerce is what scares the pants off of them and causes them to make up illogical arguments.
I know, I know, that question really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But then again neither does the response by the Chamber of Commerce to our email on the Employee Free Choice Act and Robert's blog post on Calitics about it. Here is the Chamber:
Language lesson for Calitics, the word option means "The power or freedom to choose." The Employee Free Choice Act gives no choice "if a majority of them sign cards," there will not be an election.
Yes, that's right. Workers would get to choose how or if they would like to unionize under the Employee Free Choice Act.
Option A 50% of workers sign a card saying yes I would like to join a union.
Option B the workers request a secret election.
If they choose Option A and 50% of the workers sign the cards, then they do not do Option B.
The Chamber is confused, because quite often workers have to do both A and B under the current law and that is what is wrong with current labor law, among other things.
Why do they do both you ask....well, often workers will sign the cards, but the bosses will not want to accept the fact that their workers want to join a union. The bosses decide at that point that they want a secret election. Those usually take months to set up, giving the employers time to hire union busting consultants, spend work time threatening their workers that if they vote to unionize then they will go out of business and all too often, fire workers who are helping organize a union.
The Employee Free Choice Act puts the decision making power into the hands of the employees, thus the name of the act. The end result is that workers will be able to more easily form a union when they want one. That power shift away from the corporations that make up the Chamber of Commerce is what scares the pants off of them and causes them to make up illogical arguments.
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