The Employee Free Choice Act, which is now making its way through Congress, is cause for concern among many employer groups. Sen. John McCain calls it a threat to small business and democracy, while supporters of the act claim it creates a fairer playing field between workers and employers. President-elect Barack Obama says the bill will help working Americans utilize their rights to organize under a fair and free process.
The act is an amendment to current labor relations law that states an employer must recognize a bargaining representative for its employees, without a secret ballot election, as long as 50 percent of the employees sign a card requesting that the employer recognize the representative.
The act is surrounded by heated debate in Virginia, as the state carriers a particularly colorful labor history. Some are saying that the act will have very little effect on Virginia’s smaller and medium sized companies. Those nay sayers believe that there are many different factors that facilitate and aid workforce organization and that it is not likely that this act will create large increases in union membership.
Unions currently represent 12.1% of the U.S.’s workforce, which is down from almost 30 percent in 1960. In 2007, only 3.7% of Virginian wage and salary workers belonged to a union, making union membership in Virginia much lower than national figures.
Keep up with the latest in employee relations at Employment Crossing.
January 20th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Yes. Yes. it is.
January 20th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Employee Free Choice Now . Org
Educating The World on The EFCA.
Myth vs. Reality: The REALITY is the Employee Free Choice Act Helps American Workers and their Families.
Despite the need for reform, critics of EFCA continue to misinform the public about the bill and hide the serious shortcomings of current labor law. Democrats are committed to setting the record straight and passing this important legislation on behalf of American workers and their families.
MYTH: EFCA will prevent the use of secret-ballot elections.
REALITY: EFCA does not strip workers of their right to choose a secret-ballot election to decide whether to select — or not to select — a union representative. EFCA simply gives workers the additional option of selecting a union representative by majority sign-up.
The Employee Free Choice Act is nothing new it only reestablishes the Joy Silk Doctrine of 1949
History
In 1949, the NLRB’s Joy Silk Doctrine established that “an employer could lawfully refuse to bargain with a union claiming representative status through possession of authorization cards only if he had a ‘good faith doubt’ as to the union’s majority status.This policy was changed in 1966 with the ruling in Aaron Brothers, where “the Board made it clear that it had shifted the burden to the General Counsel to show bad faith and that an employer ‘will not be held to have violated his bargaining obligation… simply because he refuses to rely upon cards. ‘If passed, the proposed Employee Free Choice Act would return the NLRB policy to the Joy Silk Doctrine and allow employer challenges to card check elections only when illegal coercion or fraud is charged.
For More Information on EFCA please visit our website and blog
http://www.employeefreechoiceactnow.org
http://efcanow.blogspot.com/
http://www.LaborUnionResources.Org