Good Morning Kristi, We have a fledgling union at my city that is under the umbrella of ASCFME (I think that is right). I'm not in the union as my position is considered managment but I have watched the results the past couple of months. The last few years we gradually saw the decrease of benefits and the employees banded together as a union to stop the erosion. I have not really seen any changes or improvements since the union started but there have been a rash of lawsuits by both sides costing both the city and the union a lot of money. One involved an increase in our health plan. The plan was in trouble and they raised the rates. I had no problem with this as it was simple economics but the union claimed that this was not in the contract and had to be negotiated in the next contract. The union was hard nosed and the city almost disbanded the health system entirely. That had me really worried. I hear of lots of little tiffs concerning people who feel they sometimes are being asked to do things outside of their job descriptions. Michael and I do a huge variety of things well outside either of our job descriptions. One example was to scuba dive at the lake to do an underwater dam inspection. You will not find that in a surveyors description at most cities. The city is currently looking at changing our pay plan and our retirement. For those of us with many years then this is of great concern. I hope the union can at least fight for grandfathering in those already vested in our plan. (10 years of more of service). Goodyear Rubber Company is probably our largest private employer in the area and they are the only Goodyear plant that is non union. Their pay is well above most pay scales in Lawton and they have a long list of applications on file for those wanted a job at Goodyear. My opinion is that if an employer pays a fair salary and has decent benefits then a union adds no value. I don't see the bill (pass or fail) having much impact in our area. Some of the smaller towns which at this moment cannot unionize may go pro union if the bill passes but from what I've seen this will not have any visible impact. Just my morning ramblings. dp

The Unions need some support from Congress, but all voting should be by secret ballot. I was part of a Union organization movement in 1979. We (Field Engineers)were for the Union almost 100 percent, but the Company did everything possible to block the Union. We eventually had the vote, but the company sued to prevent the counting of the vote. The ballots were sealed and to this day they have never been counted. The legitimate rights of employees to organize need to be protected and if this bill does that, with the exception of eliminating the secret ballot, I am all for it.

Like anything there are good and bad points. Some of the salient issues that unions address are wages, benefits and work rules. Each of these individually has positive and negative aspects. Like any relationship, maintaining and updating these agreements is necessary to keep them viable through the years. The unions have provided millions of workers with benefits that the non-unionized employee typically does not have as part of an employment package. Many non-union employees benefit from the higher standard of living his union counterparts have earned through negotiations. It is my understanding the only thing this act provides is "no automatic secret ballot" The employees can still vote for a secret ballot.

It is pretty clear from some of the statements being made about this proposal (both here and in the related RPLS.com posts linked above) that most of the people on this board have never participated in an organizing effort in their own workplace. If they had, they would have a completely different understanding of the issue. I'm not opposed to secret ballots, and in fact all the unions I know of use them. But you have to understand the specific circumstances that prevail during an organizing effort. The first thing that you have to understand is that SOP for management is to fire on the spot any employee suspected of participating in an organizing effort. Prior to the NLRB election being actually scheduled, the employees are "at will employees" and are subject to termination with no need for the employer to even state a reason. Of course it is illegal for them to fire someone for attempting to organize, but since the employer need not give a reason, and no H/R person worth their salt would, it is difficult to prove the person was fired for union activities. So there is always a prevailing atmosphere of fear among employees. In fact, in a great many work places just mentioning the word union within earshot of management will get you escorted off the property on the spot. If you want to strike terror into a Wal-Mart worker, just walk up to them in the store and ask them about unions out loud... If the unionizing effort fails, you can bet your a@@ that any of the employees that were known to have participated in the effort will be terminated shortly thereafter. Management will, upon learning of a unionizing effort, begin a campaign of intimidation against employees...telling them things like "if they organize the company will just close that location" or that "unions won't do anything but take your pay" and in some cases outright threatening employees with termination for even mentioning the word union. What the "card check" idea does is allow workers to quietly organize by going to members directly and asking them to sign these cards. This is exactly how you get an NLRB election; you need a certain number of signed cards and to make an application to the NLRB. The advantage of "Card Check" is that employees need not put themselves out in the open in an election campaign. They simply solicit cards from workers, if they get enough cards, they have a union. In an election, many employees will be coerced. They very often would like to be in the union, but fearing retribution if the effort fails, they will not support it and may not even vote for the union for fear that their doing so will leak out to management and they will lose their jobs. The card check provision provides the option to by-pass this initial election process and essentially allows you to form a union by getting enough signatures. It doesn't say that there cannot be secret ballot elections, only that you don't have to have one to organize. After organizing, all unions I know of use secret ballot voting for elections of officers, and for many other important decisions. This argument against this provision is really baseless and I will tell you why. The premise of the opposition is that people will be coerced into forming unions they don't want...Setting aside the sheer implausibility of this argument, let's look at what actually happens. If a group was to intimidate workers into signing cards to form a union and such a union was recognized by the federal government, it could not survive without the support of the membership. If the people decide at any time they don't want to have a union, they will be in control of it. They can simply vote in people who will end it. They can simply stop supporting it. Once management realizes that the employees will not support the union, they will waste little time in breaking it. The idea that anyone can successfully run a union in a bargaining unit that does not want a union is ludicrous on its face and anyone who has ever participated in a leadership position in a union would know this. Right now the deck is heavily stacked against the workers. Even the legal protections that are in place have been largely unenforced during the Bush regime. Card Check is an attempt to give workers a little more help to tilt the table not against the employer, but just not so steeply against the employees. Even with card check, it will still be an uphill battle to form a successful union local. I will tell you that my experience was that I was told the day before our NLRB election that if we voted the Union in, management's position would be that they would stall us for a couple of years and see if we could stick together. This they did. They refused to recognize the local, we litigated and forced them to recognize us, then they sued over the composition of the bargaining unit...which we won, then they pretended to negotiate for months and months. Then after more than a year