Unions will continue fight against anti-corruption measure
Colorado Amendment 54 passed narrowly, despite the heavy union spending. It restricts campaign contribution by persons and organizations who have single-source, no-bid government contracts. This includes unions as well as corporations, since unions often have sole-source collective bargaining contracts with school districts.
The unions are already making plans to file a court case against Amendment 54. Yet even if the teachers unions prevail in court, all they achieve is restoration of the old status quo - having spent millions of dollars to block some reforms. (thedenverdailynews.com)
Tension between striking United Steelworkers at American Standard and union members who have crossed the picket line is increasing as police received a number of reports of vandalism and threats. Salem police Officer David Banar said it began Friday night.
It continued Saturday when police received a report on station at 3:15 p.m. from USW Local 1538 President Rick Hands advising that he and an entire group of picketers at the South Ellsworth Avenue plant were threatened by two known individuals.
The report said the two threatened picketers "while driving by in their vehicles" and both made comments of "paybacks" due to their vehicles and property being damaged the previous night. Union representative Joe Holcomb said the two were identified as union members who crossed the picket line. He said the two threatened picketers by implying physical violence.
He said they were told early last week a total of about 19 people crossed the picket line.
Police had responded to the 100 block of Railroad Street 11:05 p.m. Friday where the complainant's vehicle suffered "severe damage" to both sides and the hood after some type of paint remover had been thrown on it.
The complainant made the report after returning to his vehicle after leaving work.
Police also received two reports Saturday of nails being placed in driveways, one in the 1500 block of Ridgewood Dr. and the other in the 700 block of W. Pershing St., by unknown subjects.
Both complainants said they believed it was the result of the current strike at their workplace. Neither reported damage to any vehicles and the West Pershing Street complainant advised he would review his video surveillance system.
Holcomb said striking workers were told to "keep it under control" adding if they were going to blame "us" for the nails they could just as easily say it was company people doing it.
"We don't condone that," Holcomb said, and related that some workers left the plant last week waving their paychecks at picketers and laughing at them.
"If they were going to do something they would have done it then," he said.
According to Columbiana County Sheriff's Office reports, the wife of an American Standard worker who lives in Salem Township reported Saturday finding nails in their driveway.
A Fairfield Township man reported Friday coming home to find a window broken and a rock in the sink. The man said he has been having problems lately because of the American Standard strike.
USW Local 1539 represents 340 hourly employees and has been on strike since Oct. 17 over wage and benefit concessions the company said it wants.
Last week, the membership was presented with three options: vote to accept the company's final proposal; stay on strike; or return to work and continue fighting labor law violations in the courts.
More SEIU stories: here • Andy Stern: here • Anna Burger: here
Jumbo fat-cat union faces down dissidents
Former California Senate Pro-Tem John Burton, UFW founder Dolores Huerta, San Francisco Supervisors President Aaron Peskin and Investment and Political Consultant Clint Reilly, head a committee of 31 top California leaders supporting United Healthcare Workers-West members fighting attacks from Andy Stern and Anna Burger, Service Employees International Union President and Secretary-Treasurer.
They join the Fund for Union Democracy and Reform to present "A Salute to Union Democracy." It honors United Health Care Workers-West members and President, Sal Rosselli, Tuesday, November 18, 5:30 to 7:30, Merchants Exchange Building, 465 California Street, San Francisco. Elected officials include California Senator, Sheila Kuehl, SF Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin, former Board President, Angela Alioto; Dean of the California State Assembly, John Vasconcellos; and California legend and former Senate Pro-Tem, John Burton.
Labor leaders include UFW founder Dolores Huerta; Fresno/Madera/Kings Counties Labor Council Secretary-Treasurer Randy Ghan; HERE President Mike Casey; SF Police Officers President Gary Delagnes; SF Firefighters President John Hanley; former Labor Council Secretary, Walter Johnson; Gunnar Lundeberg, President, Sailors' Union of the Pacific; Pride at Work founder, Howard Wallace; ILWU pioneer Leroy King, and Patricia Ford and Bob Twomey.
Community leaders include Clint Reilly; Asian Week Editor, Ted Fang; contractor Larry Nibbi; Black Commentator Editor, Bill Fletcher; Names Project founder, Cleve Jones; Jane Morrison, SF Democratic Party; Cal Winslow, Fellow, Environmental Politics, UC Berkeley; Rick Jacobs, COURAGE CAMPAIGN Chair; Former SF Fire Commissioner Angelo Quaranta; political consultants, Eric Jaye, and Don Solem and Larry Griffin, Warren Hinckle, Joe O'Donahue and Paul Schrade.
Stern and Burger oppose health care worker efforts to make SEIU more democratic and accountable to members. Rather, they want secret, behind the scene deals and top-down, big business union policies to continue.
SEIU President Stern now wants United Healthcare Workers-West placed in trusteeship. If successful, members lose control of their union.
The trusteeship threat follows Stern and Burger losing a lawsuit against Rosselli and United Healthcare Workers-West (UHW) members. U.S. District Court Judge John F. Walter dismissed it without a hearing saying it had no legal claim. Amazingly, Stern is using the same reason for justifying trusteeship.
"A Salute to Union Democracy" tickets are $25 for union members. Payment and more information at: http://www.fundforuniondemocracy.org
Union-backed group deals with objectors the fascistic way: Oust them
Community organizing group ACORN, investigated this year for filing fraudulent voter registration forms, has fired two board members it had asked to investigate allegations that an ACORN founder's brother embezzled nearly $1 million.
The fired board members were investigating allegations that money was embezzled from ACORN eight years ago.
An internal document from the ACORN executive board, obtained by CNN, shows that members Karen Inman and Marcel Reid were "removed from any office or committee position you may have held." A separate document says that "the memberships of Karen Inman and Marcel Reid in ACORN is canceled, and they are removed from the Association Board."
The documents, dated November 11, are signed by Maude Hurd, president of the ACORN Association Board.
Hurd was not immediately available for comment Thursday afternoon, an ACORN receptionist said.
But ACORN member Gloria Brown, speaking from the group's main office in New Orleans, Louisiana, said in response to a CNN request for comment that Inman and Reid were removed because "they've been saying from the beginning things that were not true."
Brown said she was the only person available from ACORN to speak with CNN at the moment.
Inman, who is from Minnesota, contends that only her state branch can remove her and it has not done so.
She said the ACORN board's actions will lead to a criminal investigation. Video Watch Inman respond to ACORN's move »
"Why would you want us not to clean up things?" she asked. "Why would you not want to do your own investigation instead of bringing in the sheriff?"
Asked whether she thinks the sheriff is coming, she answered: "I think the sheriff's coming."
The possible embezzlement by Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke, allegedly occurred about eight years ago. But the ACORN board did not find out about it until this year.
In July, the ACORN board selected an interim management committee to look at the possible embezzlement and its concealment. Inman and Reid were two of the members appointed to the committee.
When an ACORN affiliate that acts as the group's accounting firm denied the committee members access to the books, Inman said, she, Reid and several others filed a lawsuit to have the court order ACORN to preserve the books and give them access to all accounting matters.
That suit became known as the ACORN 8 because, according to Inman, eight ACORN people signed onto it. She now says there are 25 members demanding the accountability.
ACORN said the interim management committee essentially had no authority and countersued.
"They didn't have authority from that committee," ACORN member Brown said Thursday. "They filed this lawsuit that basically was not on behalf of the board at all."
According to the documents obtained by CNN, the ACORN executive board met Sunday and decided to remove Inman and Reid and any other members participating in the lawsuit.
The problems at ACORN already have cost it the financial support of one of its major donors.
The Catholic Campaign for Human Development froze contributions to ACORN in June amid the embezzlement allegations.
This week, as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Baltimore, Maryland, the campaign's chairman said it was cutting all ties with the group.
"We simply had too many questions and concerns to permit further CCHD funding of ACORN groups," Roger Morin, the auxiliary bishop of New Orleans, told his colleagues in an earlier letter to the conference.
The CCHD has donated more than $7.3 million to ACORN-related projects over the past decade, including $40,000 to an ACORN chapter in Las Vegas, Nevada, that was raided before the November 4 election in an investigation into fraudulent voter registration forms.
ACORN, which conducts voter registration drives, has acknowledged that some of its hires had turned in improper voter registrations. Those workers were fired and some even prosecuted, the group said.
"In nearly every case that has been reported, it was ACORN that discovered the bad forms and called them to the attention of election authorities, putting the forms in a package that identified them in writing as suspicious, encouraging election officials to investigate, and offering to help with prosecutions," ACORN said in an October 9 news release.
Morin said a church review completed earlier this month found ACORN no longer meets standards for further funding.
In a statement to CNN, ACORN Executive Director Steven Kest said his group is grateful for the church's funding. advertisement
"We look forward to continuing discussions with CCHD officials and the bishops in the months ahead in hopes that we can continue working together on projects which have been so important to so many in low-income neighborhoods across the country," Kest said.
But Ralph McCloud, the Human Development campaign's director, said the church has "severed ties" with ACORN and there are no plans for further discussion.
• No mandate for union thuggery ... there's no call from the public for turning America into a European welfare state or beating our swords into plowshares ... and no call for the nation to buckle under to the union bosses and enact a card-check bill that would effectively deprive workers of private-ballot votes in unionization drives. (pittsburghlive.com)
• Obama faces fight over economic growth ... Now, however, labor unions may become stronger and businesses are preparing for greater financial regulation, worker friendly policies and an emphasis on social spending ... many argue this is not the time to be passing such a bill since the economy needs big business and say Obama will not let an activist agenda get in the way of making the economy grow.(charlottesville.injuryboard.com)
• President-elect caught between unions and business ... the issue poses a quandary for the president-elect. If he pushes for the law, he risks alienating business - which also contributed heavily to his campaign and his party and will be critical to his efforts to fix the crippled economy and overhaul the health-care system. ... Barry Broad, a Teamster lobbyist and attorney in Sacramento, believes the future of unions hangs in the balance. (gulfnews.com)
• Obama cautioned on union favoritism ... When contract terms are imposed, it absolves the parties of their responsibility to compromise, a critical component of labor-management relations. Conflict resolution professionals rightfully claim that parties to a contract must have "buy in"; they must be part of a joint conciliatory process when reaching terms of a contract that governs their relationship. And what about the cost of EFCA to Main Street employers, already under pressure in this economy? With companies struggling to survive and the credit markets tightening, passing this bill does not guarantee widespread unionized employment or wage increases. (online.wsj.com)
• Democracy double-standard ... according to Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, and to those same union bosses, the right to a secret ballot ought to be stripped, by law, from American workers. Instead, the union bosses should be able to monitor individual workers' votes on whether or not to unionize - in other words, whether or not go give those same bosses more power. How convenient for the union bosses, who will be able to strongarm workers to adopt the union label. And for liberal Democrats like Miller who act as their marionettes. (dcexaminer.com)
• Leftist politicians set to deliver workers to unions ... Businesses and workers should be alarmed by the prospect of the enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act, sometimes called, "card check," which would, in union elections, end the secret ballot. The secret ballot is something Americans hold dear and is necessary for a healthy democracy. This would greatly strengthen the hand of labor unions, a core constituency of leftist politicians. It would also hurt the freedom of employees who oppose unions and may be subject to intimidation. (washingtontimes.com)
• Union organizers invade Texas ... Mr. Obama expressed support for the free choice act during his campaign. His team has since deleted references to the bill from his Web site. An Obama spokesman declined this week to comment about the bill. ... "This is absolutely a game-changer," said Robert Chiaravalli, a West Bloomfield, Mich., labor attorney and consultant. "The lions' share of employers aren't going to be prepared for it." (dentonrc.com)
• Organized labor bigs licking chops ... Union bosses know they can't raise their numbers the old-fashioned way - pointing toward bad management and lousy working conditions. That's just not the case these days. Imagine a colleague coming up, sticking a card in your face and telling you to sign it. Colleagues gather around, to watch what you do. Voting a secret ballot gives a worker a chance to vote his conscience; being forced to make a decision about signing a card in front of friends and co-workers is another thing altogether. A few disgruntled workers could drastically change not only the workplace, but the landscape across the state for attracting new industry and businesses.(al.com) Related video: "Employee Forced Choice Act"
Thugs use the law to force disinterested workers to pay union dues
Probably no group celebrated the election of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama as president more than organized labor.
For decades, labor unions have watched membership rolls dwindle. In 1983, union members made up 20.1 percent of employed wage and salary workers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Today, the union membership rate is down to about 12 percent.
In Alabama, union membership is even lower, about 9.5 percent. The coal and steel industry have strong union membership, but the state's automobile-manufacturing industry has stayed mostly union free.
Organized labor is licking its chops at the chance to organize workers at Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Hyundai, along with the thousands of men and women employed by the companies that supply the assembly plants.
Union bosses know they can't raise their numbers the old-fashioned way - pointing toward bad management and lousy working conditions. That's just not the case these days. But organized labor doesn't give up. It's looking to gain an unfair advantage in the workplace if Congress and Obama go along. With stronger Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, and Obama in the White House, organized labor's No. 1 legislative priority may become law next year.
The misguided and misnamed Employee Free Choice Act would do away with the secret ballot to certify a union in the workplace. Instead, a union could be certified simply by a majority of workers signing cards favoring the effort.
Imagine a colleague coming up, sticking a card in your face and telling you to sign it. Colleagues gather around, to watch what you do. Voting a secret ballot gives a worker a chance to vote his conscience; being forced to make a decision about signing a card in front of friends and co-workers is another thing altogether.
A few disgruntled workers could drastically change not only the workplace, but the landscape across the state for attracting new industry and businesses.
While industry observers say the so-called "card-check" law wouldn't guarantee unions a sure path to success in the nonunion plants in Alabama - those workers are generally satisfied with their wages and working conditions - it would make organizing much easier and more likely.
Let's hope Obama abandons his support of the Employee (not-so-) Free Choice Act. With the current economic environment, this isn't the time to make our state's automobile-manufacturing industry more jittery.
Secret ballots, says the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, are a "right" that should be extended to Mexican workers. Secret ballots are used to elect him to his leadership post, and will be used this very week to determine who becomes the chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, and to determine whether or not to evict Joe Lieberman as chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. And powerful labor leaders met in Washington behind closed doors (yes, in secret) last week to plot strategy. But according to Education and Labor Chairman George Miller, and to those same union bosses, the right to a secret ballot ought to be stripped, by law, from American workers. Instead, the union bosses should be able to monitor individual workers' votes on whether or not to unionize - in other words, whether or not go give those same bosses more power. How convenient for the union bosses, who will be able to strongarm workers to adopt the union label. And for liberal Democrats like Miller who act as their marionettes.
Miller and his compatriots, the same ones who today or tomorrow will vote in secret about whether or not to strip Lieberman of his power, have said one of the top items on their agenda is the Orwellian-named "Employee Free Choice Act," otherwise known as "card check" legislation, that would let labor leaders (and bullies) know exactly which workers to lean on for votes.
Yet here's what Miller, joined by 15 other congressional liberals in the guise of overseeing trade agreements with Mexico, wrote on Aug. 29, 2001, to a Mexican council: "We feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose." Yet now they would deny American workers what that same letter called a "labor right." The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
It's also incredibly wrongheaded. Consider that the heavily unionized "Big Three" automakers say they are in such dire straits that only a federal bailout can keep them from shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs in bankruptcy. Yet other car companies with non-unionized factories in the South are doing just fine. Clearly, those non-unionized workers have far better job security. Why take away their right to choose for themselves whether unions are beneficial? "Card check" is a threat both to workplace democracy and to job creation. It ought to be permanently abandoned.
Now that the facts are in, it's clear that the pro-Obama mainstream media continued to get it wrong right through election night.
Watching CNN's Wolf Blitzer add up the numbers on that night, you'd get the idea that a massive turnout of dramatically energized and newly liberal voters had produced an Obama landslide.
In fact, despite the pictures of four-hour lines at the polls, American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate reports that voter turnout in this year's election was the same in percentage terms as it was four years ago --- or at most had risen by less than 1 percent. "Between 60.7 percent and 61.7 percent of the 208.3 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, compared with 60.6 percent of those eligible in 2004," reports Curtis Gans, the director of the university's center.
In both years, in short, some 40 percent of those eligible to vote didn't show up at the polls, with Republicans, in particular, taking a none-of-the-above stance this year and staying home.
"A downturn in the number and percentage of Republican voters going to the polls seemed to be the primary explanation for the lower than predicted turnout," states the American University report. "Compared to 2004, Republican turnout declined by 1.3 percentage points to 28.7 percent."
Jennifer Marsico, a writer/researcher with the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project, explains the impact of those Republican nonvoters: "Mr. Obama got about 40,000 fewer votes in Ohio than John Kerry got four years ago. Obama carried the state where Kerry did not because Republicans stayed home."
And the reported Obama "landslide," as compared with George W. Bush allegedly just squeaking into the White House? Obama received 52 percent of the popular vote, 1 point more than Bush's 51 percent re-election win over John Kerry in 2004.
Similarly, there appears to be virtually no change among the nation's voters this year in their center-right ideological self-identification, according to exit polls conducted by the Edison/Mitofsky National Election Pool. This year, 34 percent called themselves conservative, unchanged from the 2004 election; 22 percent were liberal, up 1 point from 2004's 21 percent; and 44 percent called themselves moderate, down 1 point from 45 percent in 2004.
With party preference by race, there was also no major change this year. In 2000, according to CNN's exit polling, Al Gore got 41 percent of the white vote. In 2004, likewise, John Kerry got 41 percent of the white vote. This year, Barack Obama received an estimated 44 percent of the white vote.
The last Democrat candidate for president to win a majority of the white vote was Lyndon Johnson in 1964, following the Kennedy assassination.
Conversely, the black vote goes overwhelmingly and more lopsidedly to Democrat presidential candidates, with Gore, Kerry and Obama, respectively, getting 95 percent, 93 percent and 95 percent of the black vote, according to CBS News.
And so, what's the change? Not much. What's the mandate? Nothing.
With no ideological realignment, there's no call from the public for turning America into a European welfare state or beating our swords into plowshares; no go-ahead for Obama to push America's coal plants into bankruptcy or to put a lid on the expansion of nuclear power and oil drilling by way of excessive regulatory hurdles; no public demand for federal agents to pick up the guns or shut down talk radio; no call for the expansion of government or the redistribution of wealth; no public call to put federal bureaucrats in charge of the health-care decisions of patients and physicians; and no call for the nation to buckle under to the union bosses and enact a card-check bill that would effectively deprive workers of private-ballot votes in unionization drives.
On the card-check legislation, a proposed payback to organized labor for their more than $100 million in spending in support of Obama and Democrat congressional candidates, Obama should ask himself why the level of unionization in the nation's private sector has collapsed to 7 percent and how General Motors -- even after its upcoming multibillion-dollar bailout -- can be expected to compete against Toyota when their labor costs, respectively, are $73 per hour and $48 per hour.
What the public wants from Washington is better management, not jerks to the Left and continued payoffs to political contributors.
- Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University and a local restaurateur.
The labor movement has announced that it will push passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in the first 100 days of the Obama administration. There is even talk of adding it to President-elect Barack Obama's stimulus legislation, to reduce the spotlight on the issue. This haste is a mistake.
I am a Democrat who has worked at both the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), two agencies that figure prominently in this legislation. I believe we need a better understanding of the problems before signing on to this bill as the solution.
The Employee Free Choice Act has three main components: certification of a union as the bargaining representative if a majority of employees sign authorization cards; mandatory arbitration on the terms of a contract if the parties cannot reach agreement; and stronger penalties for unfair labor practices during a union organizing campaign or while the parties are negotiating a first contract. Related video: "Employee Forced Choice Act"
Proponents say a quarter of union campaigns result in the illegal firing of at least one employee, and that more than a third of newly certified unions never reach a contract with the company. Opponents say that a secret-ballot election is a time-honored American tradition and that mandatory arbitration only encourages irresponsible negotiations.
Yet the underlying concerns that EFCA supposedly addresses have not been sufficiently examined because hard data are difficult to secure. The FMCS and the NLRB are treasure troves of information, with databases that could give us some answers. Congress should analyze these data before making any decisions.
Consider mandatory arbitration. The FMCS tracks the progress of bargaining for a two-year period after a union wins an election, including the issues that plague the parties during negotiations, the number of mediation sessions, when those sessions were held, and the basis for closing a particular case. Yet the service protects the release of some of those data under mediator confidentiality claims. This information would allow us to determine what actually happens during negotiations that potentially delays a contract.
Similarly, NLRB data can establish whether patterns exist in the kinds of unfair labor practices committed during contract negotiations. MIT recently published research using the board's data establishing that an unfair labor practice charge against an employer reduces the chances of reaching a contract by 58%. Under the Employee Free Choice Act's enhanced remedies provision, employers who engage in flagrant unfair labor practices during an organizing campaign and immediately after a union win must pay significant penalties. But does the rest of this law address the lag in reaching contracts? Will mandatory arbitration solve this problem? We don't know.
Equally important are the practical difficulties EFCA might present. When contract terms are imposed, it absolves the parties of their responsibility to compromise, a critical component of labor-management relations. Conflict resolution professionals rightfully claim that parties to a contract must have "buy in"; they must be part of a joint conciliatory process when reaching terms of a contract that governs their relationship.
And what about the cost of EFCA to Main Street employers, already under pressure in this economy? With companies struggling to survive and the credit markets tightening, passing this bill does not guarantee widespread unionized employment or wage increases.
Case in point: In Canada, after an arbitrator imposed the terms of a contract last month, Wal-Mart was forced to close one of its facilities because of higher costs. Arbitration does not always help employees.
No worker should be fired for supporting a union, nor should employers unlawfully evade their duty to bargain. But the jury is out as to whether the Employee Free Choice Act is the only answer. Let's take a closer look first.
- Ariella Bernstein was deputy director of public affairs during her tenure at FMCS from 2003-2006. She served as a field examiner and supervisor at the NLRB from 1990-2003.
Unions heavily backed Obama and expect favorable legislation in return
Emboldened by their role in electing Barack Obama, labor unions are pushing to make it easier to organize workers in states with historically low levels of union penetration, including Texas.
The unions, which include the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win coalition, enhanced their political muscle by campaigning heavily for Mr. Obama, who sponsored several labor-friendly bills during his brief career in the Senate. The unions want the next Congress to quickly pass a bill at the top of their shopping list: legislation that would allow unions to form as soon as a majority of workers sign cards saying they want one. Related video: "Employee Forced Choice Act"
The legislation wouldn't overwrite "right to work" laws in states such as Texas, where workers can opt out of a union even after one forms. But the Employee Free Choice Act would make it easier to organize in the state, where unions see the potential to recruit thousands of members in the health care, service and transportation industries.
"We know it would incredibly strengthen the hand of workers," said Bruce Raynor, general president of Unite Here, which represents about 2,200 Texas workers.
Union leaders say the changes are needed to help offset a long history of employer hostility to unions in states such as Texas, where fewer than 5 percent of workers belong to unions. They're advertising the legislation as a complement to an economic stimulus package aimed at creating thousands of jobs.
But unions would have to overcome what appears to be unified opposition from business groups to changing union-organizing laws.
Groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce say the legislation would raise costs at a time when companies are shedding thousands of jobs and can't get loans. They want to preserve the need for a secret ballot to create a union, saying the card-signing process would let union organizers bully workers into joining.
Glenn Spencer, executive director of the chamber's Workforce Freedom Initiative, said unions would aim to recruit members in the South and Southwest, where wages are lower but more jobs have been created.
"It arguably will have more effect in the Sun Belt than it will in the Rust Belt, because in the Rust Belt, the level of unionization has reached its limit," said Harry Jones, a Dallas labor attorney whose practice represents employers. "It's all green fields down here."
Most businesses expect Mr. Obama, the president-elect, to favor labor. In the Senate, he co-sponsored the free choice act and a bill that proposed binding arbitration to solve an impasse between the Federal Aviation Administration and air traffic controllers.
The free choice act passed the House in March 2007, but it failed to win enough support in the Senate.
Mr. Obama expressed support for the free choice act during his campaign. His team has since deleted references to the bill from his Web site. An Obama spokesman declined this week to comment about the bill.
Union leaders intend to push congressional Democrats to advance the legislation during Mr. Obama's first 100 days, said Anna Burger, chairwoman of Change to Win, whose seven affiliated unions include Unite Here.
Mr. Raynor said Unite Here's get-out-the-vote effort focused on the battleground states of Virginia, Nevada and Wisconsin. Its volunteers contacted 350,000 voters in those states, he said. The union later stumped for Mr. Obama in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
"This is a reward from the Obama administration to labor for their support of his election," said Massey Villarreal, a Houston businessman who has advised Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. John McCain on economic policy.
Yet success in the Senate is uncertain. Democrats haven't won the 60 seats that are needed to block a Republican filibuster of the free choice act.
"This is a battle that will be fought in the U.S. Senate," said Mr. Villarreal, who sits on the board of directors of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.
In its current form, the bill includes two changes that are especially important to unions. First, the card-check process would replace the need to conduct a secret-ballot election. Labor leaders complain that management uses the elections to coerce and threaten workers to reject unions.
Second, an arbitrator would impose a contract if a union and management can't agree on terms within 120 days of the union's creation. There is no such deadline under current law.
"This is absolutely a game-changer," said Robert Chiaravalli, a West Bloomfield, Mich., labor attorney and consultant. "The lions' share of employers aren't going to be prepared for it."
The most heavily unionized sectors in Texas are the government and the airlines. But unions see potential members in the state's growing rolls in health care and hospitality.
"These are young workers between the ages of 18 and 35, predominantly women, predominantly Latino immigrant workers," said Jean Hervey, Southwest region director for Unite Here. "We can make these good middle-class jobs for a massive number of folks and particularly in North Texas."
Even without the legislation, the region's growing role as a transportation hub presents opportunities for unions to become more involved, Mr. Jones said.
"Dallas is becoming an inland port, and Houston is maturing as a real harbor town," Mr. Jones said. "It'll lend itself to protectionism and some union being able to put its arm around that whole group of workers and say, 'I'll get you what you need.' "
Nonetheless, increases in union membership will be incremental, according to union leaders and labor attorneys. No one expects union membership to grow to the levels of the early 1970s, when the national rate was around 24 percent.
"Even with making the balance of power more in favor of unions, it still takes a lot of work to get your organizers out to places that are having problems," Mr. Jones said. "It's still fighting off what will be some pretty strong defenses by the companies."
Until a few years ago, Mark Ritchie paid more attention to the fine print of global trade pacts than to the ovals on ballots.
Then Ritchie, a farm policy analyst, had problems changing his absentee vote for Sen. Paul Wellstone, a Democrat who died in a plane crash shortly before the 2002 election. The hassle prompted a career change that resulted in Ritchie becoming Minnesota's top election official.
Now the 56-year-old Democratic secretary of state is at the center of a recount that will determine whether Republican Sen. Norm Coleman or Democrat Al Franken won a U.S. Senate seat. Though Ritchie said he leaves his politics at the door when he comes to work, Republicans are suspicious. Conservatives have pointed out Ritchie's ties to the community activist group ACORN, which has been linked to dubious voter registrations in several states. Another group, Minnesota Majority, has criticized Ritchie for not jumping on questions it has raised about the soundness of the state's voter rolls.
"This is a test," said Republican Mary Kiffmeyer, whom Ritchie unseated two years ago. "You don't know the answer to the test before you take it."
Ritchie addressed the partisan question head-on in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio on Friday: "Yes, I'm a Democrat and proud of it," he said.
Then Ritchie went on to defend himself and two Republican-appointed state Supreme Court justices who will serve on the state canvassing board that has the final word on disputed ballots. Two Ramsey County judges - one appointed by an Independence Party governor, the other elected in a nonpartisan race - are on the board.
In an earlier interview, Ritchie said the recount "is an opportunity to reverse what Florida did in 2000 if we get this right, the way we want to do it."
His key role has already brought the glare of national attention.
"And of course they know they are going to be the subject of not just scrutiny on the part of our campaign and the Franken campaign, but really officials all over the state and the United States," said Fritz Knaak, Coleman's lead lawyer on the recount.
Ritchie, who lives in Minneapolis, said he became active in DFL politics just a few years ago. He took a leave from his job as head of a think tank, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, to run a national voter turnout campaign in the 2004 election cycle.
His brother said the experience alarmed Ritchie - enough to prompt a career shift.
"It was really about being freaked out about what he saw happening to the democracy and to the system - people's loss of confidence," said Niel Ritchie, who runs the League of Rural Voters. "He decided to give it a shot."
By 2006, Mark Ritchie was running for office. ACORN's political arm was among an array of liberal groups that endorsed him, as did the Secretary of State Project, a group pushing to elect Democrats. He beat Kiffmeyer, a two-term incumbent, by 4.4 percentage points, putting him in charge of state elections, official documents and business services in an office with about 70 employees. Ritchie makes $90,227 a year.
"He's busier now than he was before he was elected, and I didn't actually think that was possible," Niel Ritchie said.
Mark Ritchie ran into trouble during his first year in office when he furnished about 600 names on a state mailing list to his campaign, prompting complaints and an investigation by the legislative auditor. The auditor found no broken laws but said Ritchie could have cooperated more fully. Ritchie said he did cooperate and the complaints were partisan.
Ritchie's campaign Web site includes a graduation photo of his only child, Rachel Gaschott Ritchie, who was killed by a drunken driver in 2000, shortly before her 21st birthday. An organ donor, her body parts helped many people - including a young girl who got Rachel's heart.
Years later, she sent the Ritchies her own graduation photo.
"It made me stop wanting to kill the kid who killed my daughter," Ritchie said.
Ritchie said getting through two speeches on his daughter to an organ donor group the weekend after the election - commitments made long before anyone knew there would be a recount - was tougher for him than starting up the recount, despite all the drama surrounding the close Senate election.
"Saturday was a lot more complicated and difficult day than even that crazy week we just had," he said.
More CUPE stories: here • More strike stories: here
College students get a lesson in collective bargaining
As I write this, we are about to begin the second full week of the CUPE 3903 strike (hereafter, “Strike” or “TA Strike”). Initially, most of us at Schulich could not help but feel relieved at the prospect of a break. There is suddenly time to catch up on work, sleep, and friends. This applies to most students here at York University, but if we can, for one second, avert our minds from the obvious short-term benefits of “NO SCHOOL!” and consider the implications of a prolonged strike, the whole situation turns sour instantaneously. The uncertainty of the TA strike alone is enough to drive someone mad. I personally do not know how urgently I must tend to my work, whether or not to cancel my plans for winter vacation, when my final exams will take place, along with a whole host of other issues which take a toll on my mind. Naturally, many students I have spoken to about this issue feel the same way. What is this all for? Bitter TAs who somehow feel that it is appropriate to disturb an academic institution as large as York to fill their pockets. These are the same TAs who are the highest paid in Canada for their profession.
I personally feel that TAs do provide a very essential service, paramount to the success of any university. This however, does not justify them knowingly putting the education of 50,000 students on hold in order to pressure the university into providing them with a ridiculous 41% increase in pay (all demands factored in) over two years. As I waited at the picket lines with my car, a union member approached me and claimed that they are concerned about the welfare of the students and would like to see this resolved as soon as possible. I find this very hard to believe as they each had a vote regarding whether or not to go on strike, and an overwhelming majority voted yes. How does this show concern for the students? There was the option to arbitrate the matter behind closed doors, but instead the union decided to leverage our education, or lack thereof at this stage, to pressure York into succumbing to their demands.
CUPE 3903 is well aware of the unhappiness that they have caused the majority of the school and it seems that they are having trouble rallying support from anyone outside of the union. On one occasion when I was stopped at the picket lines and approached by yet another union member, I greeted him with a normal “hello”, which aroused the surprising reply of, “Oh wow! You’re so nice!” This led me to deduce that they have been receiving a less than warm reception from the rest of the university.
I wonder sometimes, what are they complaining about? In my mind, TAs are, for the most part, students who have a part-time job. The TAs at York are paid more generously than others in the same field within Canada and receive several benefits, and yet, they feel that they have been treated unfairly? One of their major concerns has been that their payments do not cover a living wage after tuition. This is unfair? They are students! Most graduate students are up to their necks in loans, working part-time elsewhere to maintain living expenses, and are not privileged to the same set of benefits which TAs are entitled to. The union members should feel lucky that they are able to pay tuition without having to worry about loans, but instead they are bothering us with their selfishness and greed. This sort of indignation serves no one but themselves, and their claims of concern for the students should not be expressed by any of them since it truly is misleading.
There are of course two sides to the story. The union has its own opinions, and some of you may even support them. My biggest issue is not with the demands, however absurd or realistic they may be (they did say they meant 11%, not 41% - and here we were getting angry for no reason!). What I find irresponsible is the fact that they have put an entire university on hold in order to serve the wishes of these select few, and while the university offers some sort of a compromise, CUPE 3903 is content with flatly rejecting anything that does not come near its asking terms. In my mind, winter is presenting her beautiful arrival as the temperature goes down and blistering winds begin to blow, and that might just give CUPE 3903 a new reason to settle this issue sometime soon so that those of us who wish to study may finally go back to doing so.
Unions will continue fight against anti-corruption measure
