Sorry for the alphabet soup in the title of this post! Anyway, the New York Times wrote an editorial yesterday, fully supporting EFCA and urging the new labor secretary (in all probability), Hilda Solis, to push for the legislation.
What’s amazing though is just how thin the Times arguement was in favor of EFCA. The Times takes the position that any increase in unionization would be great for America, thus, we should support EFCA right away. But this really misses the larger point of what has irked EFCA’s opponents — namely that the elimination of the secret ballot coupled with neutrality agreements and interest arbitration is a radical and unfair departure from what is traditional labor relations in the United States. The Times makes no defense of the card check method, neutrality, or interest arbitration — it almost seems as if organized labor decided to pass a law making it mandatory tomorrow that everyone joined a union — no matter what — that the Times would be in favor of it! It’s clear that the Times is simply advocating an end and not at all worried about the means — even when the means would be outraegous.
Furthermore, in their other advice to Solis, the Times stays silent on whether or not the incoming labor secretary should continue to require detailed financial information on LM-2 forms. Those of us that follow labor relations are well aware that scaling back the recent LM-2 changes is high on labor’s priority list — perhaps second only to EFCA. Of course, the real losers would be rank and file members who would lack information about how their dues are being spent. Newspapers are supposed to be all in favor of accountability, open records, etc. Well, at least good newspapers anyway. Perhaps the Times position on that issue will show if they are really looking out for the little guy or just trying to protect their union boss friends.
