Right to Work Blog

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) is threatening to move the Card Check Forced Unionism bill to the Senate floor as introduced unless a some other forced unionism scheme is worked out.  Frankly, an up-or-down vote on the Harkin bill would be a great opportunity for workers to see what Senators truly believe in forced unionism.  Senators would not have any fig leaf to hide behind.

Sens. Arlen Specter (D-PA), Jim Webb (D-VA), Mark Pryor (D-AK) and Diane Feinstein (D-CA) are participating in preliminary talks to find a “compromise.”  Seems like a great list of Senators to contact to voice your objections to any and all versions of the Card Check Forced Unionism bill.  Add Senators Warner (VA), Landrieu (LA), Lincoln-Lambert (AK), Snowe (ME), Collins (ME)  Nelson (NE), Conrad (ND), Johnson (SD), Dorgan (ND) and Reid (NV) to that list as well.  Senators can be reached by calling the Senate Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Sen. Ben Nelson seems to get the Card Check quandary:

You  might think that statement would come from a Republican, but it’s actually from a Democrat.

Reports that there might be a deal near on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), or “card check,” as critics and now some proponents call it, appear to be vastly overwritten.

Sen Tom Harkin, D-IA, a lead negotiator, is in talks with the Senate’s newest Democrat, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, but there are MANY more pieces to this complicated puzzle, namely a number of other Dems who do not want this.  Harkin and Specter have known each other for decades, so it is natural they would work together, but Harkin has a heavy lift to get a deal out of this Senate.

Sen Ben Nelson, D-NE, told me he does not see a deal happening this year at all. He sees no way to put a compromise together that’s pallatable.

“You take away the arbitration issue, and you still have the ‘card check’, so that doesn’t work. You take away the ‘card check’ and you still have the arbitration problem. And if both go away, you’re left with nothing. It’s a fool’s errand to do this. I just don’t see an agreement happening,” Nelson said.

Harkin must please a number of skeptical Dem colleagues in the Senate, among them, Dianne Feinstein (CA), Jim Webb (VA), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Mark Warner (VA), and Mike Bennet (CO).

One of them, who asked to remain anonymous because of the intense lobbying campaign underway by big Labor, tells Fox, “You cannot find a way to make this work. I’ve heard all the arguments, and I just don’t see it.”

Still, Harkin said he’s trying. He has Labor and a number of business concerns in the loop and is working hard to find a compromise.

However, a senior Senate Dem Appropriations Cmte aide tells Fox, “This isn’t happening anytime soon, if it even happens.”  And this aide works for a Dem who supports EFCA.

“Card Check” is a top priority for labor unions this year. It is a bill that would make it easire for workplaces to unionize.  Under the legislation, workers would sign cards rather than by voting in secret ballot elections to start a union.  The provision also calls for mandatory arbitration to set the terms of the first contract if companies and unions can’t agree within 120 days.

The whole meaning of this confusing talk is clear!  Keep the pressure on these Senators.  It is the only thing that is holding this forced unionism monster down at this point.

The City Wire reports that Neal Catlett, a former union boss at the Whirlpool plant in Fort Smith, Arkansas, opposes the Card Check Scam Bill.

“I strongly support secret ballots. Period. It doesn’t matter at what level, whether it is voting for a union or the president or your congressman,” Catlett said. “Your ideas should be personal as to if you want a union or don’t want a union.”

Kimberly Strassel at the Wall Street Journal believes your activism is playing a role in raising the stakes in the battle over the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill. This is a call to double the pressure on Senators to defeat this atrocity, which is designed simply to impose forced unionism on millions of workers.

Strassel writes:

Responsibility has a way of focusing the mind.

Take Mark Pryor, Democratic senator from Arkansas. In 2007, Mr. Pryor voted to move card check, Big Labor’s No. 1 priority. And why not? Mr. Pryor knew the GOP would block the bill, which gets rid of secret ballots in union elections. Besides, his support helped guarantee labor wouldn’t field a challenger to him in the primary.

Postelection, Mr. Pryor isn’t so committed. He’s indicated he wouldn’t co-sponsor the legislation again. He says he’d like to find common ground between labor and business. He is telling people the bill isn’t on a Senate fast-track, anyway. His business community, which has nimbly whipped up anti-card-check sentiment across his right-to-work state, is getting a more polite hearing.

But Pryor may not be alone:

Fellow Arkansas Democrat Blanche Lincoln voted for cloture in 2007 but is now messaging Mr. Reid [Majority Leader Harry Reid] that she’s not eager for a repeat. She recently said she doesn’t think “there is a need for this legislation right now,” that the country has bigger problems. . . . Even Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter, the lone GOP vote for card check in 2007, is backpedaling, worried about a 2010 primary challenge.

We have one word of advice — don’t let up for one second. The union bosses will stop at nothing to coerce millions into unions. There will be a defining moment in this fight and we have yet to have it.

What an outrage!

To justify his vote to eliminate workers’ input in the unionization process, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) is claiming that his vote to enact the Card Check Scam Bill was the “first step toward modernizing American labor law.”

First step?

We would hate to see the next step in the process.

Although we can assume that repeal of all Right to Work laws including Arkansas’ might be something he is thinking of.