Card Check Unions, and Maybe More, Come to Rhode Island
The House of Representatives Labor Committee is hearing a bill today on card-check unionization for public employees (H5134). Under the proposed law, secret ballot elections during a unionization process could be bypassed by public employees, if 70% of the members of potential bargaining unit publicly affix their signatures to “authorization cards”. No analogous card-check procedure for decertification of a public employee union is provided for in the proposed law.
If I may be informal, one question raised by the introduction of this bill is “why bother”, i.e. how much further does public employee unionization have to go in Rhode Island? When I put that question to an individual familiar with various issues of interest to Rhode Islanders, the response was to point me to a clause that would be added to the definitions section of the law…
(9) “Public Employee” includes an individual employed by the state, subdivision of the state, or quasi-public entities.Currently, there is no explicit definition of “public employee” in the law, and given the location of this clause, this new definition would extend not only the card-check provision to employees of quasi-public entities, it would extend the entire labor relations act to the employees of quasi-public entities.
So how far, exactly, would adding quasi-public agencies expand the scope of public-employee unionization in Rhode Island?
Why are you afraid of a 70% majority?
OldTimeLefty
Opposition to a gross injustice is not “fear” you ineffectual propagandist. Everyone here sees through your feeble rhetorical posing.
Imagine that you are an employee in one of these agencies, or any business for that matter. One day just before lunch you are visited by a union organizer and six of your larger colleagues, who all stand very close to you. A card and a pen are thrust in front of you, while one of these co-workers says how nice your family is and reminds you that they all know where you live.
This legislation would have our state laws sanction such extortionate behavior. Why would anyone enact such a bill?
“This legislation would have our state laws sanction such extortionate behavior. Why would anyone enact such a bill?”
Just answered your own question there.
BobN
The 8 words of “Why are you afraid of a 70% majority” can not possibly be construed as propaganda while your 90 word “what if” scenario actually is.
OldTimeLefty
OTL,
First of all, it’s actually nine words — “seventy percent” counts as two.
To which I’ll add only three more. Why are you afraid of a simple majority of secret ballots?
I always thought secret ballots were democratic.
Why does Stalinist OTL seem to think,like thug Pat Crowley,that open ballots support individual freedom?Surprise folks-these guys don’t think that at all.Individual freedom is their waking nightmare.
F**K CARD CHECK!!
Ditto what Joe said: a secret ballot is the only way to carry out an election.
Do labor union supporters (here I am specifically referencing certain of our state legislators) believe that the ONLY way they can win unionization of a shop is if the vote is open? That the concept they are trying to sell is so bad that the only way to foist it onto the workers is through a method that is highly susceptible to intimidation?
BobN
You don’t really want to get into a battle over the English language with me. The characters “70%” were written as one entity and counted as one entity. Notice that there is no separation between the “70” and the “%”. This is how I arrived at the total. Anyway, why would I waste time arguing with a person who cannot distinguish between the polar opposites of communism and fascism?
You evade the question then resort to the Joseph Goebbles propaganda trick of fabricating fantasies and posing them as problems.
Still waiting for you to let us know why you are afraid of a 70% majority.
Do you really think so little of the society in which we live that you believe 70% of us are cowed and bullied and incapable of standing up for ourselves?
OldTimeLefty
But, these same union maggots say that contracts shouldn’t be negotiated in public. Rationalize that you crusty old turd.
“say that contracts shouldn’t be negotiated in public”
H’mm. Votes should be made in public. Public contracts should be negotiated in private.
Sure sounds upside down to me.
OTL: You broke my law. You lose the argument.
I was involved in an unionization effort at a privately owned company where the so called secret ballot was used and failed. The company’s president and owner in violation of federal law had privately lobbied employees promising changes and reforms (much like Mubarak) and hinting at financial rewards for all. “just don’t let the union take over” was his message along with “I recognize the need for change” and “this is a wake up call for me”. Not only did the union not “take over”, workers who were suspected of having voted for the union were fired and those who were thought to be “loyal” received small raises. Working conditions remained much the same as before.
Why are you afraid of a simple majority of secret ballots?
Posted by Andrew at February 15, 2011 3:37 PM
See above. That is if you are done counting words.
The union advocates want to portray the image of the union as a knight on a white horse who saves employees from evil business owners. Nothing could be further from the truth. Unions are organizations that act out of self-interest – at both the organizational level and the personal level of the union bosses. Their purpose is to maximize the income they receive from dues, so that they can build personal wealth and enjoy regal lifestyles at the expense of their members. The lifestyles of union bosses bear out the truth of that statement. After subtracting union dues and the oppressive effect that union rules have on high-performing workers’ careers, nearly all employees would be better off without unions. This is why unions spend so much effort and so much of their members’ money trying to manipulate the government into making laws and regulations that give them unfair power over employers and employees. Additionally, giving union organizers privileged access to employees on company property is not a “right” to be demanded. Union organizers are third party interlopers trying to horn in on the relationship between employers and employees, on company property. They are trespassers who mean to do harm to the business. But in the world of Marxist politics, they are saviors who should have superhero status. Lies, lies, and more despicable lies. Yesterday I listened to lobbyists from Council 94 and the Firefighters unions claim that the 70% majority provision of the present bill prevent the possibility of coercion. They lie. The only thing that is an obstacle to coercion is the secret ballot. Without that, it would be easy for the union to pressure and intimidate workers up to nearly any level of support. After all, the Arab and Russian dictators all win elections with nearly 100% of… Read more »
OTL,
The proposed law does not raise the threshold for unionization above seventy percent, so no one here is afraid of a seventy percent majority — as long as it is established by secret ballot. It is the elimination of the requirement that a secret ballot be held that is being objected to.
Phil,
You’re basically saying that because a secret ballot election for a union might fail, the secret ballot requirement has to be eliminated. But if workers are unwilling to vote for a union in the privacy of a voting booth, that doesn’t mean that the process is flawed, or that unions should be allowed to rewrite the process.
Actually, we have a secret plan to take over the middle east to replace all arab dictactors.
In case you didn’t notice, it was the unions in North Africa leading the charge on the democratic charge.
And its too bad Joe Bernstein talks this way about me ion the blog because he never did so when he saw me in person. Joe, what happened?
Pat Crowley, please provide legitimate evidence to support your claim about the unions in North Africa. Be sure that it specifies whether they are trade unions or public sector unions.
Here is BobN’s statement repeated verbatim. I have substituted corporation for union, corporate executives for union bosses, profits for dues, workers for members, and corporate executives for union bosses. Notice that only the nouns have changed in BobN’s all purpose, one size fits all paragraph.
Unions (Corporations) are organizations that act out of self-interest – at both the organizational level and the personal level of the union bosses (corporate executives). Their purpose is to maximize the income they receive from dues (profits), so that they can build personal wealth and enjoy regal lifestyles at the expense of their members (workers). The lifestyles of union bosses (corporate executives) bear out the truth of that statement.
You can have a lot of fun with this. Try substituting Mega-churches for unions, ministers for union bosses, contributions for dues, you don’t even need to change the word members though you can throw in parishioners if you like, and mega-church ministers for union bosses.
Don’t limit it to corporations and churches. Fill in your pet peeve and have many hours of fun.
BobN, you should engage your entrepreneurial spirit and try to develop it into an App.
OldTimeLefty
1. It was not I who began the word-counting nonsense, it was the Leftist. I imagine that he was driven to it for lack of anything meaningful to say.
2. The fraudulent word substitution game only works for those who are already inebriated on the Leftist Koolaid. The rest of the readers here see through the clumsy tactic.
Substantively, there is a huge moral different between businesses (demonized by the Left as “corporations”) and unions. Businesses openly exist to make profits, which they earn by providing goods and services of value to customers in an environment of free negotiation and competition. Unions purport to exist for some altruistic reason, so their “mission statements” are lies from the start. And their strategy to enrich themselves is not to produce value, but to use political corruption to distort the legal system in their favor and thereby extort money from others.
Big moral difference. Of course, since Leftists refuse to acknowledge any moral principles, they cannot understand it, much less argue coherently against it.
Andrew
I was relating a story that I am familiar with and as with all anecdotes you can take from them what you will. If the ballot was not secret perhaps those who were fired within months of the unsuccessful union vote may have kept their jobs because the company would feared legal sanctions if they had fired those who had voted yes. If the ballot was not secret the company president and friend would have known how I had voted and not assumed that I had voted no.
I’ll tell you what Pat-you’ve gone over the edge.You’ve been crowing abut Chafee and you really want to let loose on everybody who opposes bad behavior by unions(yes,they can do some f**ked up things)-you can never justify opposing secret ballots.
Also your whole phony shtick about “brown people”reeks.
The times I met you,I didn’t hear the venom you’ve been putting out recently.
I hope for your sake that when the union members you claim to represent lose what they’ve counted on,you aren’t in their arms’ reach.
The main reason I have been so hard on you is that you and Peter”Trotsky”Asen have tried to smear Terry Gorman as a racist when he’s nothing of the kind.
SOME people who make immigration an issue may have bad motives,but the overwhelming majority just want the rule of law to prevail.
Keep working on it BobN. Maybe you’ll eventually wind up near the truth.
Also when you wrote “Substantively, there is a huge moral different between businesses (demonized by the Left as “corporations”) and unions.” I could, if I wanted to sink to your level of ignorance, point out that you should have written “difference”, not “different”. But I won’t.
To conclude, you wrote, “The fraudulent word substitution game only works for those who are already inebriated on the Leftist Koolaid.” Again, change Leftist to Right Wingnut and the sentence works. You can add it to your all purpose App.
OldTimeLefty
Does OTL really think he’s being funny correcting typos and substituting words into people’s comments? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him contribute anything of substance.
Dan, you haven’t. Teenage snark is the best these Lefties can manage, and even that is a stretch for them.
You have to wonder about BobN and his frequent references to teenagers. I don’t know why but Lee J. Cobb in Twelve Angry Men keeps coming to mind.
I still haven’t heard an intelligible argument about why secret ballots are bad.
As far as I know,elections to determine union representation are overseen by a neutral official.Usually from the State or Federal Labor Relations Board.So where is the problem?
Children partaking in adult conversations are cute for about 30 seconds, then become irritating distractions to the adults who are actually trying to accomplish things. Phil, Russ and OTL overstayed their 30 seconds a long time ago.
The topic, children, is the pending card-check bill and how it gives state sanction to a system that would encourage intimidation of workers by union organizers. You have proven you have nothing to contribute to the topic.