Is It Too Late To Make A Different Choice?
The Employee Free Choice Act might have died this week. Arlen Specter refused a deal wherein labor unions would encourage their members who are registered Republicans to support the Senator in a tough primary in exchange for his vote for cloture. Instead, the entire Republican caucus will filibuster the Act. Now is as good a time as any to ask: Why did the entire labor movement choose to make the Employee Free Choice Act the all-or-nothing focus of labor law reform? The Free Choice Act is a fairly narrow tweaking of a legal framework that has become a union-busting machine. It does nothing to address so-called “Right To Work” rules that allow scab workers to utilize union resources without paying a dime in dues. It does nothing to outlaw, or even curtail, the use of permanent replacement workers by employers during strikes and lockouts. It does nothing to repeal the […]