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December 18, 2008
The Impact of the "Employee Free Choice Act" on Minorities
Marc Comtois
Jennifer Rubin reports that "Al Sharpton announced that he would be opposing the EFCA and mobilizing the African American community against it." Additionally, some of Sharpton's concerns--and that of other African-Americans--were explained in a discussion on Sharpton's radio show with African-American small-business owner Sylvester Smith and Charlie King of the National Action Network (the civil rights group headed by Sharpton). As King explains:
So let’s say using my hypothetical...that the workforce gets unionized by getting, let’s say, 21 people to sign a card saying that they want a union. Then you could have, after 90 days--if you can’t have an agreement between the union and the employer--it [goes] into what’s called binding arbitration and an arbitrator, a federal arbitrator, would come in and basically decide what that contract is going to be for two years. So, essentially what you could have is a person, a working man or woman, in a business who will have a contract put upon them without them ever agreeing to have a union or voting on it or having a say in what that contract will be once unionized.Sylvester observed:
[W]e think that the heart of this issue is not about protecting workers, the heart of this issue is about the decline of union membership that’s been going on in this country for the past thirty years. The unions at this point are in a death spiral and much of it’s tied to the exportation of production jobs from this country to other countries and the unions.…As Rubin adds, "Whatever one’s opinion of Sharpton, his opposition to EFCA signals an important division within the Democratic Party."
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Sharpton is from my neighborhood in Brooklyn.It was a place that never had to go into decline-it was a dump from the jump.(that actually rhymes).He was a phony "boy preacher" and later a snitch for the FBI.
Posted by: joe bernstein at December 18, 2008 4:52 PMI'm not arguing the merits of the EFCA-just defining Al Sharpton.
Joe Bernstein
Someday I'd like to hear what he snitched about, Joe.
Sharpton's stance on this is stunning. He is absolutely correct when he says:
"Yeah, well, what I don’t understand about it which is why I’m in the campaign is why wouldn’t those of us who support workers being protected, why would we not want their privacy protected. I mean why would we want them opened up to this kind of possible coercion?"
Yeah, Al, that's what we'd all like to know.
Posted by: Monique at December 18, 2008 10:29 PMEven liberal stalwart George McGovern has come out against EFCA.
But he's no longer counting on union money to keep him in office, so he can remain principled in favor of workers.
Follow the money - Democrat officeholders know that a huge proportion of the increased dues attributable to this coerced unionization will end up in their campaign coffers.
Posted by: Tom W at December 18, 2008 11:13 PMSo Sharpie's suddenly a hero? Well, the right can thank Sharpton for Joe Lieberman keeping his Senate seat after the Prince of Pomade leaped up on Ned Lamont's stage.
Posted by: rhody at December 19, 2008 12:00 AMThe smartest thing Obama did in his campaign was steer clear of Sharpton and Jackson.
Sharpie's not about the workingman. He's about lining his own deep pockets.
Monique-I don't recall the exact circumstances,but when the allegation was made,he didn't go out of his way to deny it.
Posted by: joe bernstein at December 19, 2008 12:57 AMLet's never forget the Tawana Brawley fraud he helped perpetrate.