Why the anti-union animosity?

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Parados is perfectly correct that the highest court in the land has already decided that you are wrong, George. I haven't seen you meaningfully account for that in this discussion. It's difficult to move forward in a collegiate and light-hearted manner when you consistently refuse to examine the actual laws as they are on the books, and the actual proposed changes to the law - substituting instead your OPINION of what we 'should' be discussing.

Cycloptichorn

Well the actual law presently on the books gives target companies the right to ask for and get a secret ballot. The Supreme Court hasn't ruled against that. What we are discussing here is a proposed change that would deny that right in many cases. You have not presented a credible case in behalf of the rationale for that change ... other than the greater convenience to the union. Thee is no problem - other than the rejection of union organizing efforts by the voluntary actions of the workers themselves - to which card check is the solution.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

Well the actual law presently on the books gives target companies the right to ask for and get a secret ballot. The Supreme Court hasn't ruled against that.

Now you are just niggling george.. There really isn't anything else to say about your argument.

The USSC didn't rule that companies could ask for a secret ballot. In fact they ruled that it wasn't required for the union to exist.

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@parados,

You are wrong on both points. The USSC merely ruled that card check was allowable in conditions prescribed by law. The ruling didn't address the conditions under which secret ballots could or could not be requested or mandated.

You have again failed to address the nature of the presumed "problem" (in the current legal prescription) that the proposed card check legislation is designed so "solve".

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

You are wrong on both points. The USSC merely ruled that card check was allowable in conditions prescribed by law. The ruling didn't address the conditions under which secret ballots could or could not be requested or mandated.

Did you bother to read what you wrote?
The court ruled on where is was allowed by law which is precisely under what conditions it can be requested or mandated. If the law changes the conditions change under the law.

Are you now niggling about the conditions under the law not being conditions?

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@parados,

You are merely restating (although less grammatically) what I wrote. Evidently there is no level of deception or evasion to which you will not stoop.

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@georgeob1,

Of course george. Your statement negates your argument. The court ruled the conditions are such that voting isn't necessary. You are arguing that the conditions are completely different while at the same time acknowledging they are the same thing.

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@parados,

What conditions ? The ruling, as I see it, merely states that laws permitting card check are not necessarily unconstitutional. That doesn't limit states or the Federal government from requiring secret ballots under some circumstances - precisely as current law does.

Again I ask - What is the problem or defect in the current syatem for union organization of targeted companies that the proposed card check legislation is intended to correct?

Cyclo has answered honestly, saying that it is intended to help make union organizing more successful than it has been - in short to bias the outcome towards more unions. I'll leave him to ponder the question of which polling method is more likely to represent the real will of the workers.

Perhaps we can replace our current electoral system with the equivalent of card check with polling done by outfits like Acorn (and the inevitable Republican alternatives).

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@georgeob1,

Yes george? And the proposed change doesn't eliminate secret ballots.

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@parados,

OK, we have at last established that your USSC bit was an irelevant distraction.

What then is the problem in the current system that the proposed Card Check law changing labor organizing will correct ??????????????

It must be significant, because it bacame a high priority for the Democrats, though passage now is likely impossible.

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@georgeob1,

All we have established is you don't want to deal with their ruling.

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@parados,

What is the problem that the proposed Card Check legislation would correct ???

It's a very straightforward question. Why do you so persistently decline to answer or address it?

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@georgeob1,

georgeob1 wrote:

What is the problem that the proposed Card Check legislation would correct ???

It's a very straightforward question. Why do you so persistently decline to answer or address it?

The problem? In cases where 85, 95, and 100% of workers demand to unionize, the company can slow things up and try and gum up the works by forcing a secret ballot, claiming that each of the workers was 'intimidated' whether there's evidence of it or not. They then use the time to begin intimidating workers themselves and try and wreck the union's shot of winning the election. The workers believe this isn't fair. I could link to many accounts of this, but most are on pro-union websites and I doubt you would care or even read them.

This is not a complex thing to understand and both Parados and I have patiently explained it to you more than once. You just don't believe there's any merit to it, because at the end of the day you strongly believe in union intimidation, and you don't really believe in management intimidation.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

The company management is an interested party in any labor dispute and has a right to a voice in any union organizing effort. It is called free speech. Both the union organizers and the company have a fundamental right to it. You are advocating a limitation on the free speech of one, but not the other, party.

You have not addressed the highly counterintuitive implied proposition that signing a card shoved in your face by a union organizer is a more reliable way of determining the real intentions of the workers that are the target of the organizing effort than an anonymous secret ballot. They are being asked to surrender 1-2% of their pay to be forcibly collected by a third party, and also have a right to consider both perspectives and express their choices outside the view and snooping of those who would influence their choice.

I suspect if corporations proposed that such unionizing efforts be decided by employees filling out a form in the HR office of the company you would find that highly intimidating and unfair. You are merely rationalizing intimidation by labor union organizers as beneficial because it empowers a political force that you consider desirable and achieves a result you want. The cost of that, of course, is the freedom and free choice of the employees themselves.

You also imply that during current organizing efforts companies practice intimidation, but unions don't. And assert you have evidence of this, but that it is all exclisively from union sources that you assert I will wrongfully discount. You also ignore the extensive public record of union corruption, criminal activities and collusion with organized crime

Perhaps you see yourself as a member of the new "vanguard of the working class", one who knows better than they do what is really good for them. Think about it. It's all been tried before and the results weren't good.

In any event the argument is academic, because the proposed law isn't going to be passed.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

The company management is an interested party in any labor dispute and has a right to a voice in any union organizing effort. It is called free speech. Both the union organizers and the company have a fundamental right to it. You are advocating a limitation on the free speech of one, but not the other, party.

What a crock of shite there george. How does the company have a free speech right in a voting booth?

The company is free to campaign against the union during the time card are being signed. They do it all the time to try to prevent votes in the first place. There is no restriction placed on the company's speech by card check.

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@parados,

Not true on several points. Deliberately deceptive on others.

There are provisions in the draft law that would reduce the time available for the management to rebut the union claims & promises, precisely designed to reduce management's ability to persuasively present its point of view. Indeed democrat apologists have openly acknowledged this. Moreover my union boss friends (leaders of various unions in northern California) openly acknowledge it.

The managers and owners of companies of all types have rights of free speech, as do the corporations thenselves under established law. You already know that. The proposed card check law would abridge those rights.

No one is advocating a voice "in a voting booth" other than that of the individual worker. I suspect that was an artfully worded deliberate attempt to evade the appearance of a direct lie while enabling you to contiunue evading the central issue concerning the relative merits of secret ballots and cards thrust into the faces of workers by union organizers in eliminating intimidation in union organizing efforts.

You still haven't addressed the central issue. What defect in the present system is the proposed card check law decigned to remedy ? Is it a remedy at all?

Your feeble evasions are getting weaker and weaker.

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@georgeob1,

Quote:

There are provisions in the draft law that would reduce the time available for the management to rebut the union claims & promises, precisely designed to reduce management's ability to persuasively present its point of view.

Right. We should take your word for this because you know the proposed law so well and have studied it. Rolling Eyes

Can you tell us where this provision is? I doubt it but I thought I would ask anyway just for shits and giggles.

Quote:

The managers and owners of companies of all types have rights of free speech, as do the corporations thenselves under established law. You already know that. The proposed card check law would abridge those rights.

Which provision abridges their rights? Is it the same part that makes it mandatory there be no election ever? It must be in that fictional part because I don't see it in the rest of the law.

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@McGentrix,

Pretty cool video, but he should have mentioned that unions have now devoted $20 million to recalling Republicans, street actions, and lobbying efforts to preserve their current deals. He should have also mentioned that unions are claiming that the citizens through our elected officials trying to roll back the deals with the public sector unions is according to unions a civil rights violation.

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@joefromchicago,

joefromchicago wrote:

More Americans are employees than employers. Presumably, then, most Americans would have sympathy for fellow employees rather than for employers. Yet that sympathy often doesn't extend to fellow employees who are union members. I can understand if you're a boss who doesn't like unions, but I'm at a loss to understand why a worker wouldn't like them. Can someone explain this to me?

Recently public-sector unions have been centers of controversy and the public's lack of empathy with them largely results from the fact that the public is to some degree is the employer and there can often be a fundamental conflict of interest between employer and employee. The goals of a public-sector union simply conflict with some of the goals (sometimes shortsighted) of the public who foot the bill in fundamental ways.

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@Robert Gentel,

After watching the video two posts above mine I see it made the same point but concluded that we should oppose these unions based on only this conflict of interest, and the corruption (which it is correct to point out), this is a position that ignores that while public-sector unions are in a conflict of interest with the public in some ways (the union's desire to be paid more, the public's desire to spend less) they have shared interests in others (attracting good employees) because these unions often provide public services.

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Why the anti-union animosity?

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