The SEIU, Service Employees International Union is conducting a nationwide blitz in an attempt to unionize McDonalds. I personally don’t think they have a chance in hell. What the SEIU fails to tell the workers is how they could be actually jeopardizing their jobs. Who would pay $10 for a Big Mac?
What they’re pushing is the The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Read on..
From WIKI
The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is legislation in the United States which aims to “amend the National Labor Relations Act to establish an efficient system to enable employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to provide for mandatory injunctions for unfair labor practices during organizing efforts, and for other purposes.”[1] Under current labor law, the U.S. National Labor Relations Board will certify a union as the exclusive representative of employees if it is elected by either a majority signature drive, the card check process, or by secret ballot NLRB election, which is held if more than 30% of employees in a bargaining unit sign statements asking for representation by a union. If enacted, this bill would require the NLRB to certify a bargaining representative without directing an election if a majority of the bargaining unit employees signed cards, the card check process.
Pursuant to the bill, a union can demand that an employer begin bargaining within ten days of certification of the union as the exclusive bargaining representative for an appropriate unit of employees via the card check. In addition, if the union and employer cannot agree upon the terms of a first collective bargaining contract within ninety days, either party can request federal mediation, which could lead to binding arbitration if an agreement still cannot be reached after thirty days of mediation. Where government arbitration determines terms of the agreement, employees would lose their current right to ratify the terms of the agreement. Finally, the Act would provide for liquidated damages of three times back pay if employers were found to have unlawfully terminated pro-union employees. The EFCA also would impose a $20,000 penalty upon employers for each employer violation of the proposed legislation if the NLRB and/or a court deems the violation willful or repetitive.
From The Heritage Foundation
How the Employee Free Choice Act Takes Away Workers’ Rights
Does a ballot cast in private or a card signed in public better reveal a worker’s true preference about whether to join a union? A private vote is the obvious answer, but organized labor has nonetheless made the misleadingly named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 800) its highest legislative priority.
Recently, unions have switched the focus of their organizing operations from private balloting to publicly signed cards. These so-called card-check campaigns make it much easier for unions to organize workers, but most companies strongly resist the idea of denying their employees a vote. Unions now want the government to take away workers’ right to vote and certify unions after only a card-check campaign. The Employee Free Choice Act would do this and more.
First, it requires the National Labor Relations Board to certify a union after a majority of a firm’s workers has signed union cards, putting an end to almost all organizing elections: “if the [National Labor Relations] Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations…the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization.”[1]
Second, the EFCA requires companies and newly certified unions to enter binding arbitration if they cannot reach agreement on an initial contract after 90 days of negotiations.[2] Neither companies nor employees could appeal the arbitrator’s ruling, and the contract would last for two years.
Third, H.R. 800 would dramatically increase the penalties for unfair labor practices committed by employers, but not unions, during an organizing drive.[3]
More here and it’s worth the read.
AWB
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Tags: EFCA, Employee Free Choice Act, McDonalds, McStupid
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Second question: Do you know how long Mickey D’s will stay in business if every employee is paid $6,000 per hour?
Third question: If you don’t make enough money working here, why don’t you get a job elsewhere?
Fourth & Fifth Questions: Did you know that the SEIU is deeply involved in the selling of Obama’s Senate seat to the highest bidder by Gov Hot Rod Blagojevich? And did you know that someone will go to jail because of this?
If all the management of McDonalds can use their collective power to make decisions about the future of their company, what do you have against employees bargaining collectively? Give the employees the same right.
McDonalds has put themselves in this situation by bottom feeding off of the labor pool for generations.
Most people that work at McD’s work there because they aren’t smart enough to work anyplace else. I don’t know how many times I have gotten my order screwed up by them. If they are unionized, it will only get worse. There will be an even lesser chance that they could lose their job, and therefore they will be even lazier.
Well heaven forbid if you should decide to eat during a lunch hour or dinner hour, or breakfast rush or breaktime, because well, you will just have to wait til they are ready to work…
Unions have been great for the car industry, just imagine what it could do for McDonald’s. They will create a new industry…the ‘Slow Food’ industry!
we love the Riley Hospital & Mr. Mc Donald.
Think about it. Nothing like a big cure!
Hope your little ones are safe and have a place
to get their health on par. Riley Hospital & Mc Donalds’
rocks.
Yes..go figure..wait…it is simple!
McCool said: If all the management of McDonalds can use their collective power to make decisions about the future of their company, what do you have against employees bargaining collectively? Give the employees the same right
If they want the same right they can buy stock and become stockholders, or get a fscking education and climb the corporate ladder and become CEO. It’s not “their” company, they just work there.
The fact remains, McDonald’s has become a Godsend for teenagers to find a decent place of employment, where they are treated fairly, taught responsibility and sent off into the adult world understanding what a good work ethic means.
Unionizing teenagers, or the undereducated trailer park dwellers that work at McDonald’s and switch jobs every 3 months doesn’t have a chance anyway.
I’ve got nothing against unions. But it isn’t feasible to organize unskilled workers. If they go on strike, it’s really easy to find replacement workers. This is why the labor movement has largely focused on organizing skilled workers.