The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would amend the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to allow for public card-check campaigns during union organizing drives.

Currently, the NLRA requires a government-supervised secret ballot election to recognize a union as a collective bargaining unit once the union has collected authorization cards signed by 30% of the employees. An employer may also choose to recognize the union based on presentation of a majority of employee-signed union authorization cards. EFCA seeks to amend the NLRA adding language that requires an employer, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), to immediately recognize the results of a card-check campaign, without a secret ballot election, if a majority of employees have signed a union authorization card.

EFCA also mandates time frames for the beginning and conclusion of union contract negotiations. If, after 90 days, no agreement has been reached, either side may request mediation from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). If the FMCS cannot broker an agreement within 30 days the negotiations would be referred to a federal arbitration board whose decision would be binding upon both parties for a period of 2 years. Effectively, the federal government would be setting the terms of labor for a private company.

The Employee Free Choice Act was passed by the full U.S. House of Representatives in March 2007 by a vote of 241-185. The Senate took up floor consideration of EFCA in June 2007, but failed to pass the bill after it failed (51-48) to reach the 60 votes necessary to end debate.

Status of Legislation: The House (H.R. 1409) and Senate (S. 560) bill introduced on March 10, 2009. The House bill was introduced with 223 original cosponsors, down from the 233 that signed when the bill was introduced in 2007. The Senate bill was introduced with 40 cosponsors, down from 46 in 2007. In recent weeks House leadership has hinted that they want the Senate, where EFCA failed in 2007, to take action and vote first since the bill is expected to easily pass in the House.

Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Representative John Kline (R-MN) have introduced the Secret Ballot Protection Act, which would "ensure the right of employees to a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board." The Senate version (S. 478) currently has 19 cosponsors and the House version (H.R. 1176) has 109.

Mar 6, 2010 Democrats Need a Rally Monkey (New York Times) “When a party’s snakebit, it’s really snakebit,” said Charlie Cook, the independent political handicapper, who is predicting a thumpin’ for Democrats in November. Pushing the Employee Free Choice Act could rally labor. In the scenario best for the Democrats, the Tea Party peaked with Mr.    more...  

Mar 6, 2010 Carpet group, lawmakers meet (Chattanooga Times/Free Press) Services in Atlanta, joins TVA in Chattanooga as chief information officer. TVA Vice President Jacinda Woodward has been acting chief information officer since last fall.    more...  

Mar 3, 2010 AFSCME workers to vote on union representation (The Philadelphia Inquirer) Hundzynski is a union organizer for District 1199C, usually trying to sign up nurses and other health-care workers. I'm not going to give out handbills.    more...  

Mar 3, 2010 Still With Obama, but Worried (New York Times) Obama has not pressed for immigration reform this year. Trumka said that unions would not campaign for Democrats who had done little for labor, especially on issues like the card-check bill. Obama got a health care overhaul enacted and advanced a bill making it easier to unionize, that would go...    more...  

Mar 3, 2010 The Obama administration's poor relationship with Labor (Washington Post) They don't have the votes, and they'll be even further from having the votes come January. Not only is that not enough, but it's not smart in the long run: Democrats need a strong labor movement, yes, but so too do American workers. Without Labor, workers have no organized lobby advocating...    more...  

Mar 2, 2010 In speech to AFL-CIO, Biden defends bailouts, jobs-creation agenda (The Hill) That’s where labor is going to lead.    more...  

Mar 2, 2010 USC fraud case heading for trial (The State) Card office of USC's division of business and finance. He is charged with taking money from USC's Carolina Card machines. More than 25,000 students, faculty and staff put money into the machines to add purchasing power to debit-type cards, which are used as identity cards and to make campus...    more...  

Feb 28, 2010 EDITORIAL: STALLED AGENDA (Richmond Times-Dispatch) Virginia's Jim Webb and Mark Warner supported cloture. If their side had prevailed, Big Labor's right-hand man surely would have won confirmation to a panel with powers that could affect business-labor relations to business' great detriment. Both parties, however, have embraced unwritten rules...    more...  

Feb 26, 2010 Mall's $100 million tax break fast-tracked (The State) S.C. voters also will elect a secretary of state in November.    more...  

Feb 25, 2010 Group plans petitions on secret ballots, paycheck deductions (Las Vegas Review-Journal) ...causes. The SOS Ballot Nevada initiative on paychecks really is an "impediment" to block unions from acting in their members' best interest, Kallas said. Mooney acknowledged that unions have opposed similar efforts by his group in other states, and he expects challenges in Nevada. In...    more...