Big labor changes possible, ex-NLRB chair says

[Omaha Steve]

Source: SF Gate

Washington -- Former National Labor Relations Board chairman and Stanford law Professor William Gould said Monday that the biggest changes to labor law since 1935 are within reach if provisions that have inflamed employers, particularly the elimination of secret balloting in union organizing, are modified.

Addressing labor relations agencies in Oakland, Gould suggested using mail-in ballots instead of the proposed card check rule, which would force employers to recognize a union if more than half the workers sign a card saying they approve.

Gould, who led the labor agency in the Clinton administration, said the debate has "gone off course" over card check. Under the plan, secret ballots would be available, but employers say they would not be used because union organizers could intimidate workers into signing cards.



The Employee Free Choice Act, a priority of unions and their Democratic allies on Capitol Hill and in the White House, has been bogged down in an intensely emotional fight between unions and employers over secret ballots and mandatory arbitration that would force employers fighting union organization to submit to a third-party mediator.





Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/20/MNHD18S3L6.DTL

[TexasProgresive]

1. That's rich

Under the plan, secret ballots would be available, but employers say they would not be used because union organizers could intimidate workers into signing cards.

Oh I thought that employers didn't want it because they couldn't intimidate workers who are pro-union.

[stuball111]

2. Bull

"Under the plan, secret ballots would be available, but employers say they would not be used because union organizers could intimidate workers into signing cards."

And what's to stop companies intimidating workers into NOT signing?

[Wednesdays]

3. K&R

:kick:

[seabeckind]

4. Is this guy a friend of labor?

I can't figure him out. Lord knows we sure don't need another friend of the slave owners.

Now if we had a law that said that employees are implicit voting stockholders.... And could vote on management pay and benefits packages, and could vote on company direction...

Afterall, they invest much more than money.

[bertman]

5. If every employee is given a ballot and a pre-addressed envelope that sends the ballot

to the appropriate counting group, that means each employee fills out the ballot, mails it in, and the votes get counted.

Please explain to me what is unfair about this or how intimidation can be used by either the employer or the union if the ballots are secret.