


Labor unions view this year's presidential elections as a golden opportunity to reverse a decades-long decline in union membership as both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton have vowed to pass a law that would drastically tilt the balance of labor relations in favor of unions.
The so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would grant unions certification as soon as they had collected signature cards from half the workers, effectively stripping workers of their right to vote in a secret ballot. Political activism between now and November is expected to be at the top of the agenda at next month's Service Employees International Union's (SEIU) convention, where opponents of EFCA will certainly be targeted for defeat.
EFCA would also impose substantial fines for innocent employers' mistakes, as well as force first contracts determined by a third party arbitrator, even if the employer and the union might disagree to the terms of the contract.
"The landscape of workplace law would be changed dramatically. Employers need to prepare to combat increasingly energized union organization across all industries, and the negative impact on operations that this will bring," says Michael J. Lotito, a recognized workplace law expert and partner at the national employment law firm, Jackson Lewis LLP.
"Imposing the rights of administrators to enforce contracts fundamentally changes American jurisprudence by enforcing parties to perform, even if there is not mutual consent."
Setting the stage for the election battle over labor will be the SEIU's quadrennial convention taking place from June 2 - 4 inSan Juan, Puerto Rico. Both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO have vowed to spend tens of millions of dollars in the election to secure passage of the EFCA.
"This act would not only take away the long-standing right of workers to vote by secret ballot on unionization in government monitored elections, it would actually reduce worker choice by opening the process to coercion and intimidation and other abuses that secret ballots were designed to remedy in the first place," Mr. Lotito states.
The SEIU convention will also deal with a number of contentious issues, such as internal political issues over Andy Stern, the president of SEIU, whose leadership is being challenged by Sal Roselli, president of United Health Care Workers-West.
"The way the SEIU resolves these internal disputes over leadership should have enormous implications for employers," Mr. Lotito stated.
(newsblaze.com)