Labor

Lindsay Beyerstein has the goods on Dede Scozzafava, the GOP’s luckless candidate in New York’s 23rd Congressional District. In September, Scozzafava’s campaign claimed she opposed the “card check” provision of the Employee Free Choice Act. But at the same time, she told the AFL-CIO, in a candidate questionnaire, that she supported EFCA’s provision that “would [...]

If anyone thought that a liberal President Obama, backed by large Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, was just going to write his way through Washington this year — think again.
It’s a moderate’s world on Capitol Hill right now, and the latest evidence arrived yesterday when the Democratic sponsors of a controversial labor-friendly proposal [...]

The $150,000 in fines so far charged to Los Angeles clothing maker American Apparel for allegedly employing illegal immigrants may be a welcome change from the notorious factory raids by federal agents that led to hundreds of jailed and deported employees. As The New York Times reported on Friday, it suggests a shift in strategy [...]

Robert Reich, economist and former Clinton administration labor secretary, doesn’t think much of General Motors expected bankruptcy filing today, as the nation’s largest automaker prepares for a de facto government rescue and takeover. If the United States really wanted to help GM, Reich wrote in an op/ed for the Financial Times, it would try a [...]

If Smithfield Foods, which I wrote about in an earlier post, rang a bell, it may be because the company has recently gotten some bad press for its troubled labor relations. The problems are heating up with the company’s latest announcement that it’s closing six plants and cutting 1,800 jobs.

The nonpartisan money-in-politics-tracking Website, OpenSecrets.org, has an eye-opening roundup of the money spent in support or opposition the Employee Free Choice Act, introduced in Congress yesterday.
The bill, which would allow employees to form a union if they can gather signatures from a majority of workers, rather than being required also to hold a formal election [...]

Unmentioned in President Obama’s speech to Congress last night was the impending battle over “card check,” which promises to be anything but post-partisan. As conservatives debate how to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act — which, if passed, proponents argue would make it easier for workers to form unions — advocates of the law have [...]

While opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act will be well-funded, a strategy division, and the size of the Democrats’ majorities in Congress, are making life difficult for the anti-labor side of the debate.

With former Health and Human Services Secretary-nominee Tom Daschle out, Rep. Hilda Solis (D-Calif.), President Obama’s nominee to run the Department of Labor, is the most controversial pending cabinet appointee.
Republicans are asking about Solis’ role as treasurer for American Rights at Work, the pro-union group that’s currently on the Hill pushing for the Employee Free [...]

The $700 billion bank bailout was supposed to stabilize banks and get them lending again. However, some of the recipients seem more interested in rallying big business against the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for workers to unionize.
Sam Stein reports in The Huffington Post: