Monday, July 20, 2009
Employee Free Choice Without Card Check: "Card Check Lite?"U.S. News and World ReportIn an effort to get moderate Democrats in the Senate on board with the Employee Free Choice Act, the key "card check" provision of the bill has been scrapped, The New York Times is reporting. Opponents centered their fight around this section of the legislation, which would allow workers to form unions by signing cards instead of holding a secret ballot election. But the fight isn't over--even if card check is scuttled--as opponents are taking aim at possible revisions.Business interests have argued that card check would make workers vulnerable to union intimidation, while unions argued that the existing process of holding secret ballot elections has left workers open to intimidation and threats from employers. To form a union now, at least 30 percent of workers must sign cards indicating they want a union before they can hold an election, then a majority must vote to organize. During the election process, some employees have been subjected to "threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, and retaliation for union activity," according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank focused on labor issues that receives some funding from unions.
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