Today, at the Heritage Foundation blogger briefing, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao described the union transparency requirements introduced during the Bush administration as “more important than Beck.”

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 1988 decision in CWA v. Beck is crucial in protecting individuals’ First Amendment right not to be forced to pay for speech or political activity with which they disagree. Under Beck, workers who are required to pay for union representation may reclaim the portion of their dues that are not used…

Read the full story

With Al Franken joining the Senate, public attention is again turning to the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). In the weekend Wall Street Journal, the Reason Foundation’s Shikha Dalmia makes the case against EFCA’s binding arbitration provision, which has not gotten nearly as much public scrutiny as its now-infamous secret ballot-circumventing card-check provision.

As she notes, many state and local governments have extended compulsory arbitration to their employees, especially public safety workers, in exchange for their giving up the right…

Read the full story

The AFL-CIO has obscured its poor financial condition through “creative accounting,” says Machinists union President Tom Buffenbarger, reports Associated Press.

Tom Buffenbarger, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, said in a report that the labor federation obscured its financial difficulties heading into last year’s presidential election campaign, in which it backed Democrat Barack Obama. Net assets of the 11 million-member AFL-CIO declined to a negative $2.3 million as of June 30, 2008, from a $66 million surplus…

Read the full story

The possibility of parts of the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), specifically EFCA’s binding arbitration provision, coming back into the political arena has focused public attention on how some centrist members of the Senate might vote on cloture if an EFCA-minus-card-check bill were to be introduced. EFCA’s card check provision, which would allow unions to circumvent secret ballots in organizing elections, was extremely controversial and proved unpopular.

Under EFCA’s binding arbitration provision, if a newly unionized company and the union…

Read the full story

How damaging would the so-called Employee Free Choice Act be to businesses? Enough to force some healthy companies into bankruptcy. Specificaly, EFCA’s binding arbitration provision could lead to newly unionized companies being forced to assume unsupportable new pension liabilities. Thus explained Brett McMahon of the construction firm Miller & Long, speaking to bloggers at The Heritage Foundation today.

EFCA supporters have tried to sell the legislation’s binding arbitration provision as a guarantee of first contract. In fact, it’s a recipe for…

Read the full story

Today in The Wall Street Journal, Kimberley Strassel dissects the shifting political prospects for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), commonly known as the “card check” bill. (”Card check” is a unionization procedure whereby union organizers circumvent the secret ballot process by getting workers to sign union cards in the open, exposing them  to aggressive, hard-sell intimidation tactics.)

It hasn’t been much noticed, but the political ground is already shifting under Big Labor’s card-check initiative. The unions poured unprecedented money and manpower…

Read the full story

Organized labor came out big for Barack Obama and other Democrats running for offices across the country, so we can expect the unions to demand the victorious Dems to enact legislation they want.

Chief among union priorities is the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would allow unions to circumvent secret balloting in union organizing elections. EFCA would allow a union to be recognized by the National Labor Relations Board as the exclusive bargaining agent for workers at a workplace if…

Read the full story