The Story Of American Workplaces

(This post is part of Brave New Films' 16 Deaths Per Day campaign, for which I am a blogger fellow.)

Steven Greenhouse reports in the New York Times that employers are routinely underreporting illnesses and injuries to their workers.

The report, by the G.A.O., the auditing arm of Congress, said many employers did not report workplace injuries and illnesses for fear of increasing their workers’ compensation costs or hurting their chances of winning contracts.

The report also said workers did not report job-related injuries because they feared being fired or disciplined and worried that their co-workers might lose rewards, like bonuses or steak dinners, as part of safety-based incentive programs.

“The widespread underreporting so clearly documented in this report is undermining the health and safety of American workers,” said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “If we don’t know the full extent of the workplace hazards workers face, we cannot fully address these risks.”

Mr. Harkin was one of the Congressional leaders who requested the report.

It's hard to even determine the problems with workplace safety when employers are systematically undermining the data. And it's impossible for industry to take credit for declines in workplace injuries and even fatalities if the official data cannot be trusted (that decline can also be attributed to the overall decline in the workforce due to the recession, too, as well as the decline in staffing at the agencies that keep the records). In fact, the GAO report concluded that OSHA may have failed to account for "up to two-thirds of all workplace injuries and illnesses."

See, OSHA relies on data from employers for a bulk of its surveying about workplace safety. That's right, the foxes write up the reports about the henhouse. When you start talking to people other than the site managers, some interesting statistics crop up:

The accountability office also found that more than a third of the occupational health practitioners it surveyed said that employers or workers had pressured them to provide insufficient medical treatment to hide or play down work-related injuries or illnesses.

The safety and health administration requires employers with more than 10 workers to record every work-related injury or illness that results in lost work time or medical treatment other than first aid. Some occupational health practitioners say that to avoid recording an injury, some employers will try to limit treatment for a serious injury to just first aid.

In other cases, the practitioners said, employers might seek alternative diagnoses if the initial diagnosis would result in a recordable injury or illness.

They want to avoid OSHA site inspections, which they know the agency is only equipped to perform on the most egregious violators. If you stay out of sight, you'll be out of OSHA's mind, in all likelihood.

When you read the independent reports, outside of OSHA, you begin to get the true picture of what American workplaces look like. In the low-wage market, there are all kinds of systematic violations, forcing employees to work longer hours for less pay - and these violations extend to health and safety. This stress and strain may account for the shocking rise in workplace suicides over the last year.

“This report confirms that when it comes to the documenting of workplace injuries, we can’t just take employers at their word,” said Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington and chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety. “The system, to this point, has been all too easy to game.”

Which is why we need real changes to the system like the Protect America's Workers Act.

Taxing High-End Insurance Plans

Democrats are getting a lot of pressure from unions to eliminate the one provision that would corrode, or at least stop privileging, the inefficient employer-based health care system we have for the majority of this country:

As Democratic leaders prepare to bring healthcare legislation before the full House and Senate for votes this month, they soon must decide who will be taxed to pay for expanding coverage -- the wealthy or the insurance companies.

Legislation emerging from the House would slap a surtax on upper-income people. But many Democrats, especially in the Senate, fear the political fallout over voting to raise anyone's income taxes.

The most prominent Senate bill would impose a tax on insurance companies that provide expensive policies, sometimes dubbed "Cadillac" plans. But labor unions -- a powerful force within the Democratic Party -- bitterly oppose the idea, saying the tax would be passed on to workers in the form of higher premiums or shrunken benefits.

This would have been mitigated greatly by passing the Employee Free Choice Act first, because now it looks like Democrats are just dumping on labor unions. They need to pass EFCA very soon.

But let's be clear what the tax on insurers would do. It would only affect 10% of all insurance plans, and a lower percentage of those are union plans. And it's the only way to take in revenue for health care that extends beyond the cost of health inflation. I don't think the excise tax is entirely well-designed - it isn't adjusted by region based on cost-of-living, and without indexing it will quickly affect the average plan - but the House bill financing is not at all well-designed. It's just a budget-buster, with the effects past the budget window to hide them. That's a recipe for getting the bill dismantled in the future.

In other words, surpluses in the early years make up for deficits in the later years. But since time doesn’t actually stop when the CBO ten-year scoring window expires, what you’re left with is legislation that worsens the long-run fiscal outlook. That’s not really so awful since it basically just means that you’ll need to change the law sometime in the next ten years, and the law will definitely be changed in the next ten years anyway. But I’d say it’s definitely worse than the more robust form of deficit neutrality given by a bill that includes a revenue source which grows over time in line with costs.

To be clear, I think they should impose the surtax TOO, and use that money to expand the subsidies in the exchange. But the real goal here should be getting employers out of the business of providing health care, or at least into the regulated exchange. Taxing high-end plans does this, and does it in a mostly progressive way.

Here's A Thought, Take The Popular Option

Kevin Drum is as shrill as he gets, which is to say, measured, polite, and miffed.

In case you missed it, Jon Stewart had a good riff on this last night. His question: Why are Democrats so lame? It's a good one! They have a huge majority in the Senate, the public is strongly in favor of a public option, and yet....for some reason they can't round up the votes to pass it. Hell, they can't even round up a normal majority to pass it out of the Finance Committee, let alone a supermajority to overcome an eventual filibuster.

If Democrats really do lose the House next year (about which more later), this will be why. If they don't pass a healthcare bill at all, they'll be viewed as terminally lame. If they pass a bill, but it doesn't contain popular features that people want — like the public option — they'll be viewed as terminally lame. At a wonk level, a bill without a public option can be perfectly good. But wonks aren't a large voting bloc, and among people who do vote, the public option is very popular. So, um, why not pass it?

I will minimally defend Democrats. The Finance Committee has a 13-10 split, which is a bit less of a majority than the 60-40 overall split. Stewart's point was that Democrats had a supermajority and didn't use it in the Finance Committee is inaccurate. Furthermore, there's no such thing as a supermajority in the patently undemocratic confines of the Senate. Because the public option isn't popular among land as well as people, it doesn't have 60 votes in a Senate organized around land. There's also the problem of unanimous opposition from an entire political party, which really does represent a crisis of governance.

That said, yes! Democrats are lame! Especially in this case, where they have a popular policy that also happens to be the policy that best brings down costs and provides competition in the insurance market. As for Drum's point that a bill without a public option can be good at a wonk level, he's talking about something like the Swiss health care system, where private insurers exist without a public alternative, but are strictly regulated. Which is perfectly fine except for a few things:

1) It is the second-worst system in the world in terms of costs, rivaled only by... the United States.
2) We have no history of regulatory strictness, in fact we have the opposite history, so actually pulling off a regulation-based check on the insurance companies is a real long shot.
3) The Swiss have higher co-pays, insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses than Americans, which politically would not fly at all. People are already crushed by the burden of high-dollar health care here.

The truth is that the difficulty of Democrats to include a public option - though I don't think it's dead yet - reflects the breakdown of our political system and the influence of corporate money. The Swiss have their health care plan because they put it in place relatively recently, and the large health interests didn't want a public component. It's the same here, and frankly politicians in both parties have been bought off.

As I said, I don't think this is quite over. Labor won't budge on their insistence on a public option, and for a White House obsessed with keeping their majority that's a big deal - lose the support of the AFL-CIO and you lose seats, period. What's more, progressives understand the pressure points now - mainly, the White House and Harry Reid. If he includes a public option in the merged Senate bill it will be very hard to get it out, and then Senators will be faced with the unpleasant choice of filibustering a bill that has the overwhelming support of the Democratic caucus and the White House to protect insurance company profits.

I'd make two calls today - Reid's office and the White House switchboard.

Unions And Health Care

The labor movement has generally been a pretty strong voice for health care reform. That actually makes them an anomaly, because they and the workers they represent already receive, for the most part, quality health care through their collective bargaining contracts. The health care is often so good, in fact, that many unions gave up several wage hikes in order to get it. And now, with provisions in the Baucus bill to tax insurance companies for offering "Cadillac" care, we're starting to see the unions' self-interest come into play. Richard Trumka, the new head of the AFL-CIO, told Ben Smith that he would fight the insurance company tax:

AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka seconded a fellow labor leader who applied a barnyard epithet to the Senate Finance Committee's bill and with its proposal to tax some medical benefits.

"Gerry has much wisdom," Trumka said in an interview today, referring to AFSCME President Gerald McEntee, who attacked the bill last week. "We don’t think that the way to provide benefits for everybody is to tax people's benefits so they end up losing their benefits."

"We will fight pretty doggedly attempts to tax benefits because we’ve paid for those benefits over the years – we’ve forgone wage increases, pension increases, days off, and everything else to get those medical benefits," he said.

Trumka at least offered an alternative to pay for coverage subsidies and Medicaid expansion - a financial transaction tax. It's a very good idea to tax a minimal amount on every stock transaction - it's a pure tax on wealth, would hit those who make money from selling back and forth a hundred times a day, and would probably lead to limits on computerized flash trading, which should be illegal anyway. But it just makes no sense as a way to pay for health care. I also think Trumka is being a bit disingenuous by saying that taxing insurance companies on high-dollar plans would "tax benefits." It could just as well incentivize insurers to charge less on high-dollar plans. Trumka has a serious argument about the trade-offs of the union movement, but that should be accomplished through negotiation - companies relieved of an enormous health care burden may be happy with a payout.

The employer-based system is no friend to health care and should not be artificially preserved by a giant employer deduction. Baucus' bill offers a backhanded way to get at that deduction, but with nothing to rein that in, health inflation will probably cause every union to give back health benefits anyway. So at some point, we have to start moving America off of employer-based health insurance.

In another development, this Politico article quotes Anna Burger from SEIU saying that she could support a bill without a public option. SEIU and Burger have since refuted that, but that union has always taken a slightly more pragmatic approach. I'm generally tired of hearing "X says he/she could live with a bill without the public option!" stories, so I'll let that one lie. Soon enough people will have to pick a side, anyway.

On Arlen's Side

The President held a fundraiser for Arlen Specter yesterday. Which makes sense for him - Specter is favored, helping him overtly keeps him on the Administration's side, and considering all the attacks from Republicans, having a former one switch to your side probably feels pretty good.

And Specter has been a good soldier thus far, voting with his party over 90% of the time and supporting a public option in health care reform and even hammering out an agreement on the Employee Free Choice Act.

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) on Tuesday told the AFL-CIO convention in Pittsburgh that he has been working hard “for hours” on a deal with other key senators, such as Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), as well as labor leaders, on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

“We have pounded out an Employees Choice bill which will meet labor’s objectives,” Specter said. “I believe before the year is out, and I will join my colleague Sen. [Bob] Casey [Jr. (D-Pa.)] in predicting, that there will be passage of an Employees Free Choice Act which will be totally satisfactory to labor.”

The bill is one of the labor movement’s most important legislative priorities this Congress, one they believe is necessary to protect workers’ rights. Specter’s prediction was greeted by a prolonged standing ovation from the convention’s attendees, members of the nation’s largest union federation.

It looks to be a bill with real penalties for labor law violators, binding arbitration for a contract if a workplace gets unionized and no deal between labor and management could be reached, and no delays in union certification. Card check is probably not in the bill, I would guess, but that alone would represent a real achievement in labor law and an expansion of the potential for unionization.

So that's great. And Specter is being a good soldier. But he does not get anointed as a result. And indeed, much of his good work is being caused by the fact of a primary fight with Joe Sestak. Which could lead to a dramatic change in labor law.

Primaries work.

...Another example. Specter called for single-payer to be put on the table. The backstory here is that a single-payer bill is winding through the Pennsylvania legislature with a lot of support, and Specter wants a part of that.

We need to immediately move to primaries in every blue or purple state to put the heat on these Senators.

Washington, We Have A Jobs Problem

The jobs report for August showed another 216,000 losses. That's far less than previous months, in fact the smallest in a year, but still not very good. The unemployment rate jumped up to 9.7%, and it'll basically be a matter of time before we're at 10%.

The AFL-CIO released a stunning report about young workers, showing their struggles in the past decade, where they have less jobs, worse jobs and no security.

Some of the report’s key findings include:

31 percent of young workers report being uninsured, up from 24 percent 10 years ago, and 79 percent of the uninsured say they don’t have coverage because they can’t afford it or their employer does not offer it.
Strikingly, one in three young workers are currently living at home with their parents.
Only 31 percent say they make enough money to cover their bills and put some money aside—22 percentage points fewer than in 1999—while 24 percent cannot even pay their monthly bills.
A third cannot pay their bills and seven in 10 do not have enough saved to cover two months of living expenses.
37 percent have put off education or professional development because they can’t afford it.
When asked who is most responsible for the country’s economic woes, close to 50 percent of young workers place the blame on Wall Street and banks or corporate CEOs. And young workers say greed by corporations and CEOs is the factor most to blame for in the current financial downturn.
By a 22-point margin, young workers favor expanding public investment over reducing the budget deficit. Young workers rank conservative economic approaches such as reducing taxes, government spending and regulation on business among the five lowest of 16 long-term priorities for Congress and the president.
Thirty-five percent say they voted for the first time in 2008, and nearly three-quarters now keep tabs on government and public affairs, even when there’s not an election going on.
The majority of young workers and nearly 70 percent of first-time voters are confident that Obama will take the country in the right direction.

At the low end, workers are often paid under the minimum wage and cheated out of overtime pay.

This is just not sustainable. A thin layer of the super-rich exploiting a permanent underclass, with many out of work or unable to gain independence, will not result in a workable society. Social unrest is a more likely outcome.

We cannot forget this. The Democratic Party is becoming reliant on the professional class instead of the working class, and it leads to policy that doesn't help workers. The shrinking unionized sector, and the inability to create policy to reverse that trend, will come back to hurt the so-called "party of the people."

Labor's lack of clout to pass EFCA in even the most overwhelmingly Democratic -- and progressive -- Congress in decades is an indication that we already have a successful progressive movement in which labor plays only a modest role. Union support was less crucial to Obama's nomination and his general election victory than it was to any previous Democratic president, which is why he's not obligated to twist arms to pass the bill. Many Democratic victories in 2008 were in states and districts where labor is weakest, like Virginia and North Carolina. And I know dozens of engaged liberals who have no idea why EFCA matters.

The new progressive coalition follows the lines of the "emerging Democratic majority" that Ruy Teixeira and John Judis predicted in their 2002 book of that name: minority, professional, and younger voters, with help from a large gender gap. This is a coalition that can win without a majority of white working-class voters, whether union members or not. (Those who were union members were always solid Democrats.) In many ways, that's good because it helps to bring an end to the culture wars that limited the party's ability to speak clearly about matters of fundamental rights and justice.

But it's also dangerous. A political coalition that doesn't need Joe the -- fake -- Plumber (John McCain's mascot of the white working class) can also afford to ignore the real Joes, Josés, and Josephines of the working middle class, the ones who earn $16 an hour, not $250,000 a year. It can afford to be unconcerned about the collapse of manufacturing jobs, casually reassuring us that more education is the answer to all economic woes. A party of professionals and young voters risks becoming a party that overlooks the core economic crisis--not the recession but the 40-year crisis--that is wiping out the American dream for millions of workers and communities that are never going to become meccas for foodies and Web designers.

I think the lack of connection between Democrats and the working class reflects itself in all these jobless recoveries we're seeing. Policy just isn't made for the median income, but of, by and for the rich. It's a very dangerous situation.

CA-10: Quick Sprint For September 1

The primary election in California's 10th Congressional District is set for September 1, with the general election on November 3. If nobody gets 50%+1 on September 1, the top vote-getters in each party advance to the general election, and given the orientation of the district, the top Democrat on September 1 will be the next Congressmember from CA-10.

The New York Times read off the conventional wisdom yesterday:

The lieutenant governor, John Garamendi, is considered the early favorite to replace Ms. Tauscher. Mr. Garamendi, a Democrat who had considered running for governor next year, said he opted instead for Congress in large part because of the abbreviated campaign [...]

Mr. Garamendi’s principal challengers among the Democrats, some polls show, are State Senator Mark James DeSaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan. Both were elected to their current posts last fall [...]

The rest of the Democratic field is not as well known, though one candidate has attracted some national attention: Anthony Woods, a 28-year-old graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and a veteran of the Iraq war who was awarded the Bronze Star for two tours of duty. Shortly after his return from combat, while at Harvard working toward his master’s degree, Captain Woods told military superiors that he is gay, resulting in an honorable discharge [...]

Others in the Democratic field include Tiffany Attwood, a local planning commissioner and self-described “mom who plays soccer” — do not call her a soccer mom — and Adriel Hampton, a former reporter for The San Francisco Examiner who said he was entering politics because of a “Howard Beale moment,” referring to the fictional insane anchorman from the 1976 film “Network.”

We're slowly starting to learn further details. While candidates don't need to announce fundraising totals until July 15, Anthony Woods got the jump by announcing that he raised over $100,000 from 800 donors, which his campaign reports as twice as many as the number of donors John Garamendi announced a week earlier. He's pushing his online efforts:

Woods’ campaign is also leading his CD 10 competitors in online fundraising and online organizing. According to ActBlue.com, Woods is far outpacing the two other Sacramento politicians in the race–State Senator Mark Desaulnier and Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan—in internet fundraising, and Woods has organized more supporters on Facebook (more than 4,700) than every other CD 10 candidate combined.

Woods has captured some national attention, particularly in the blogosphere, and we'll see if that translates to a quick-sprint campaign. John Garamendi seems not to think so:

Garamendi said it's a three-way race, and he's not counting Woods as a top-tier candidate: "He's a serious young man that's capable, and he's got a national issue and a good story to go with it. And that's to his benefit."

But he said Woods is similar to the half-dozen or so other confirmed or prospective candidates who lack a natural base for their campaigns: "Everybody regards me as the front-runner."

To that end, Garamendi secured a local labor endorsement, from the Alameda County Central Labor Council. There's a small patch of Alameda County in the district, particularly around Livermore. But the dynamic in the race thus far has been that Mark DeSaulnier locked up all the early local support, including Contra Costa County's Labor Council, and Garamendi had roped in the national labor groups. The Lt. Governor getting local labor support helps him with manpower.

I hope to have much more on this race as it moves forward, including some discussions on the issues currently facing Congress.

Labor's Still Got Some Muscle

A couple days ago, the LA Times, no doubt dripping with glee, printed a story about labor being outmaneuvered on the Employee Free Choice Act and in particular the card-check provision. First of all, the idea that anyone in the labor movement would be surprised by corporate opposition to this bill is kind of crazy. They knew that big business would throw everything they had at this, and that Republicans and key corporate Dems would resist passage.

But rumors of labor's demise are greatly exaggerated. First of all, Tom Harkin is making a smart threat, vowing to either reach a compromise on Employee Free Choice or force his fellow lawmakers to vote on it.

That may not sound like a grave threat, but it may well be. Two of the bills main skeptics--Sens. Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)--face re-election next year, and both, for different reasons, may ultimately need union support to prevail. Specter, who tacked to the right and came out against EFCA before becoming a Democrat, is facing pressure from the Democratic base and Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) to move left or face a primary challenge.

And at least one high level union official has suggested that if Lincoln doesn't come around and support an EFCA compromise, she may face a green party challenger, in addition to a Republican challenger, in the general election.

And let's not forget that labor still can throw their weight around on non-EFCA issues, and they came up with a major victory to stymie the Obama Administration's apparent efforts to pass a corporate-written trade deal:

U.S. officials said they will delay seeking congressional approval for a pending free-trade deal with Panama until President Barack Obama offers a new “framework” for trade.

The administration, which in March said it would move quickly to pass the trade agreement with Panama, wants to outline how trade fits with other priorities such as assistance for unemployed workers and health care, Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Everett Eissenstat said today.

“It’s clear that trade agreements in the last few years have been much too divisive,” Eissenstat told the Senate Finance Committee. “We want to make sure that Panama doesn’t contribute to that divisiveness.” [...]

Eissenstat’s comments follow remarks by John Sweeney, the head of the AFL-CIO labor federation, that unions would oppose a rush to ratify the deal. The Panama accord was signed in 2007 and was viewed as the least controversial of three trade agreements reached by President George W. Bush and pending congressional approval.

Really, the wolf whistles and hoots hoping that labor is demoralized and devoid of clout really are embarrassing.

Sausage Making On Employee Free Choice

Yesterday Arlen Specter announced that a compromise was in the works for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Sen. Arlen Specter said Thursday the "prospects are pretty good" for a compromise on legislation making it easier for workers to form unions.

Specter had come out against the bill in March, disappointing labor leaders. They had hoped he would be the crucial 60th vote needed to overcome an expected GOP filibuster of the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Pennsylvania senator has since switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, and he said he's been meeting with labor leaders and fellow senators in hopes of coming up with a compromise he could support.

President Barack Obama also said Thursday that he hoped a compromise could be worked out that would "get enough votes to pass the bill."

The good news here is that Specter realizes he needs to protect his left flank, lest he receive a primary challenge. American Rights at Work released an ad hammering him this week, and the unions have made it pretty clear that they will condition their support for Specter based on his record.

The bad news is that we have no idea what form this compromise will take. Specter has signaled that he opposes both the majority sign-up and the 120-day arbitration portions of the bill. The second part doesn't get mentioned much, but it's just as important, as Harold Meyerson noted in the Washington Post:

If our nation was governed by business's version of democratic choice, we would hold elections to determine the winner, but nearly half the time the incumbent would remain in power even if he lost.

In its campaign to derail the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), business has fearlessly depicted itself as the defender of elections and the secret ballot as well as the foe of the dread "card check" -- the process, championed by unions and included within EFCA, that would allow workers to sign union affiliation cards rather than compelling them to go through a ratification election in which harassment and firings of workers are all too common.

But the kind of democratic choice that business favors is choice without consequence -- a position made clear by its opposition to the other key component of EFCA: binding arbitration between company and union if they've been unable to agree on a contract within 120 days of a union winning the election. A study of first-contract negotiations by John-Paul Ferguson and Thomas A. Kochan of MIT's Sloan School of Management makes clear why such arbitration is needed. After surveying 22,000 unionization campaigns between 1999 and 2004, the authors found that even after a majority of workers voted for a union, they actually reached a contractual agreement with management (which is currently under no legal obligation to come to an agreement) only 56 percent of the time.

Heads, management wins. Tails, the employees lose.

Specter and others have proposed modifications to both majority sign-up and 120-day arbitration. There's Dianne Feinstein's "vote-by-mail" sign-up, where workers send in cards to the National Labor Relations Board and get their union when half of the workplace sends them in. And Specter has promoted a "last best offer" arbitration, with mediation after each side sends in their proposal.

We'll see if these are amenable to the unions. My hope is that everyone understands that the current system is irreparably broken, and we need something to change the ability of employers to fight tooth and nail against unionization, even after the workplace makes their will known through a hard-fought election. In the end, this is about worker rights.

Division Of Labor

The rumors of a deal on the Employee Free Choice Act are really heating up. Card check is likely to drop, but other notable elements may remain. And in place of the new bargaining rules, none other than Dianne Feinstein has proposed a kind of vote-by-mail version of card check that would eliminate the hype from the right about the end of the "secret ballot" in union elections.

To win more support and prevent any intimidation, Senate Democrats are considering a proposal pushed by Senator Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat. In a procedure similar to the early voting that precedes elections in many states, workers could sign cards and mail them to the National Labor Relations Board. If a majority mailed cards, the board would order the employer to recognize the union, as it now does when a majority of workers vote for a union through secret ballots.

It's kind of a novel idea, though I'm sure the right will find fault with it (maybe now we'll get "union voter fraud" cases). But it's important to understand that the union election process as it stands now looks nothing like a political election. Unless in a political election, your boss can bring you into a room and tell you how important it is to vote for John McCain, threaten to give you crappy shifts if you don't, fire the Obama organizers and run nothing but McCain ads 24 hours a day:



That union election dyusfunction must change. The same with the ability for employers to endlessly delay the election and then object to a contract even if the workers vote for a union. The National Labor Relations Board has a mission to ENCOURAGE unions, by the way, but their laws do the opposite. So this vote-by-mail card check at least would end this nightmare of a process. Another possibility is a quick election process, perhaps even in a matter of days, which wouldn't give the employer time to hire the union busters and intimidate their employees.

The other sticking point would be mandatory arbitration 120 days after union recognition, if both sides cannot reach a contract. Arlen Specter, fighting for his political life, has come up with a plan:

Mr. Harkin said, “If the Chamber of Commerce says they’re opposed to everything, then they’re not going to be a player.” He cited a proposal by Mr. Specter that might help preserve the arbitration provisions. Under it, the arbitrator would choose between offers by an employer and by a union. “The last, best offer idea might have legs,” Mr. Harkin said.

Several labor leaders said they would accept legislation with fast elections only if it included arbitration and tougher penalties for companies that break labor laws. One view is to wait until 2011 to push for sweeping labor law changes, on the assumption that Democrats will enlarge their Senate majority in the 2010 elections.

A separate idea would have mediators involved in negotiations instead of giving it all to an arbitrator. Jane Hamsher has more.

My view is that we need to start reforming the broken system, so more mild reforms are a good launching-off point. Eventually, perhaps after the midterms, I would return to this and resubmit the Employee Free Choice Act language as written today.

Employee Free Choice - Card Check = FTW?

A leading Senator signaled yesterday that the Employee Free Choice Act may go through a revision that would remove the controversial "card check" provision and retain the rest of the bill.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, who sponsored legislation to make it easier for workers to join unions, said the main provision of the proposal may have to be dropped to get the votes to pass it.

There isn’t enough support for a provision called card-check that would allow workers to bypass an election and form a union when a majority of them sign cards requesting one, Harkin said Monday in an interview.

“Compromises are going to be made,” said Harkin, an Iowa Democrat. “It probably won’t be card-check because too many people are opposed to it now.”

There are three elements to the Employee Free Choice Act. One, majority sign-up, has been turned into the entire bill. But there are new rules in the legislation about the timing and process of union elections, as well as stricter penalties for those who break the rules, particularly employers who intimidate their workers into voting against joining a union, or fire union organizers. T.A. Frank wrote about the importance of these measures a few months ago.

If a company illegally undermines a union campaign by threatening to fire workers, or by spying on them, or by promising to shut down the facility, the most serious penalty it can expect to face is being ordered to post notices in the workplace promising not to engage in such activities in the future. If a company illegally fires a worker, and the worker can somehow prove his or her case, the penalty is a requirement to reinstate the employee with back pay—minus whatever the employee has earned elsewhere in the meantime. And if a company negotiates in bad faith, it can perhaps expect an order from the NLRB to start negotiating in good faith. Such punishments are the equivalent of punishing shoplifters by asking them to put the merchandise back.

This is what lawmakers have sought to remedy in devising the Employee Free Choice Act. For all the controversy, EFCA is a surprisingly modest bill, with provisions aimed at strengthening existing labor laws rather than altering them substantively. Under EFCA, if Rite Aid had been found guilty of making illegal threats or of spying or of intimidation, it could have faced a monetary penalty—up to $20,000 per incident in cases of repeated violations. If Rite Aid had been found to have illegally fired a union supporter, it would have been required to pay not just the back wages, but three times the back wages. And if contract negotiations were being conducted without results, either party could seek federal mediation after ninety days. If, after thirty additional days, negotiations were still stalled, then an arbiter would be able to impose a contract settlement that would last two years. This would prevent employers (or employees) from running out the clock with bad-faith talks [...]

The question, then, is how much of a fight the card check provision merits. And the answer is probably a little, but not a lot. What most undermines the secret-ballot process is that employers can violate the law in numerous ways without consequences. Under EFCA, however, every illegal action has the potential to be costly, so firings, spying, threats, or other forms of intimidation would be less likely. Also, there is an alternative way to preserve the secret ballot while guarding against company malfeasance: expedited elections. Under current law, months can go by between when NLRB announces the results of a card check vote and when a secret-ballot election is held. If, however, this campaign window were reduced to just a few days, employers would have less opportunity to intimidate union supporters into changing their minds.

My personal view is that the majority sign-up portion of the bill is inoffensive and makes sense - a recent study out of Illinois found no instances of union coercion in their state's majority sign-up law, compared to many thousands of instances of employer violations nationally under current law. Majority sign-up is a sensible application of the will of workers to organize. But Frank makes a compelling case that the other elements of the bill would aid union organizing efforts as well, and at this point, that's far better than no bill at all.

...Arlen Specter is now promising a compromise on Employee Free Choice that looks suspiciously like Harkin's proposal.

The Senate’s newest Democrat expressed optimism today that he could possibly work out a compromise this year with the primary sponsor of legislation easing union organizing rules.

“We’re going to work on it,” Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter told reporters a week after leaving the Republican Party for the Democratic side of the aisle.

Specter announced earlier this year that he would vote against cloture on the so-called union card check bill (S 560) in its current form. He said today his views on the legislation remain unchanged but that he’s willing to work to find common ground with its sponsor, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.

“I’m opposed to giving up the secret ballot or to mandatory arbitration as they are set forth in the bill,” he said. “But I do believe that labor law reform is past overdue.”

In other words, he wants card check without card check. And that might be okay, for the reasons I set out. But my kabuki antennae are at full blast. Specter comes up with an already-set "compromise," the unions grudgingly agree, they back Specter, and everyone praises everyone for finding the wise middle ground.

The Good Kind Of Kabuki

This Arlen Specter/Joe Sestak story has evolved rapidly in the past 48 hours. Labor in particular has basically given Specter a choice - support our issues or we'll support somebody else. The famously ornery Snarlin' Arlen will have to decide whether he only responds to right-wing pressure.

On today's "Top Line," Richard Trumka, the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, warned that union leaders may drop their longstanding support for Specter, D-Pa., if -- as he has promised to do -- he votes against them on their legislative priority, the Employee Free Choice Act.

"Those decisions will be made by people in the state, and our members in the state know who will stand with them. And if Arlen Specter -- he stood with them in the past -- if he continues to stand with them, they'll support him. If he doesn't, they won't support him," Trumka told us.

Sestak echoed this after a meeting with the SEIU's Andy Stern, saying bluntly, "I cannot see the unions across the board supporting Specter if he cannot support EFCA ... [Stern] let it be known that it’s very much on the top of their agenda.” And leading Democrats are hinting to Specter that his ability to stave off a primary challenge will be dictated by his record as a Democrat.

I'm wondering whether at least a little of this is kabuki. Sestak loses nothing from calling out Specter - even if he decides against running, he gains credibility as a Democrat enunciating Democratic principles. And if Specter does end up voting the right way on health care or EFCA, Sestak gets at least some of the credit. And given that Sestak has only grown louder in his criticisms, he certainly hasn't heard from on high - say, from the White House - that he might want to tone it down. It serves their interests to have a credible voice pushing Specter, or a chorus of voices.

Regardless of the theater at play here, Specter cannot exactly take the chance of not listening.

Campaign Update: CA-10, CA-03, CA-47, CA-50

The Internet moves at, well, Internet speed, so parts of my House race roundup were already out of date or incomplete by the time I published it. So here's an update on a few races.

• CA-10: John Garamendi announced a significant series of national labor endorsements for the upcoming CA-10 race, despite Mark DeSaulnier having locked up the Contra Costa County Central Labor Committee endorsement and the local Building Trades (which cover almost 100 local unions) and chairing the Senate Labor Committee. They include:

AFSCME: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
CNA: California Nurses Association
CFT: California Federation of Teachers
UFCW: United Food & Commercial Workers
CSEA: California School Employees Association
Laborers International Union of North America
International Union of Operating Engineers
CWA: Communication Workers of America

Many of those can provide PAC money, resources and support to Garamendi, leveling the playing field in a race where DeSaulnier captured all the early endorsements.

• CA-03: I passed on the rumor about Phil Angelides and CA-03 in my roundup, but local blogger Randy Bayne dismisses that report and notes that Elk Grove City Councilman Gary Davis will likely run, having met with the DCCC and begun the process of putting a team together. I don't agree with Bayne that a contested primary (Dr. Amerish Bera has also announced) would impact negatively on the race. Especially when the candidates have low name ID, a primary can increase their public profile and show them to be a "winner" in front of the district, at the end. Momentum can build. Primaries don't necessarily have to be nasty and debilitating, and I fail to understand why anyone would reject them out of hand.

Incidentally, I never took much stock in the rumor about Angelides, I simply thought it would be a decent line of inquiry, given his name ID, fundraising ability and progressive profile.

CA-47: One potential challenge to a Democratic incumbent I overlooked yesterday was Van Tran's run against Loretta Sanchez, profiled in Politico.

On the heels of an election marked by a dismal performance among Asian voters, top Republicans are aggressively recruiting California Assemblyman Van Tran, a Vietnamese-American, to challenge Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) next year.

If elected, Tran would be the second Vietnamese-American in Congress, after Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (R-La.), who won his seat in a 2008 election.

Tran has already been feted at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s March fundraising dinner as a guest of the committee’s recruitment chairman, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and he was encouraged to run by House Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor. He also made a trip to Washington after last November’s election to meet with officials from the NRCC.

Even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has assisted in the recruitment process, meeting with Tran and offering support for any potential candidacy. Tran was an outspoken backer of McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and helped him carry Orange County over Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primary.

What the story fails to mention is that, not only does Tran not have full support among the Vietnamese community in the district, not only does Loretta Sanchez have experience easily defeating Vietnamese challengers, but Tran didn't even do that well in his own Assembly race last year, winning over 55% of the vote against Ken Arnold. If Tran is one of the Republicans' top recruits, they're in even bigger trouble than I thought. Incidentally, Sanchez' voting record has greatly improved over the past couple years.

• CA-50: I should have cited Francine Busby's Firedoglake chat from a couple weeks ago. I don't think I agree with her on this, though:

I’ve alway said that the Latino voters have to organize register and educate from within their own community. I see more activism and organizing going on than I did before. In fact, I will be attending a meeting on Monday of the reconstituted Latino American Democratic Club in Oceanside. We may have a strong Latina running for a state office who can rally the base. Also, Bilbray is their worst nightmare, so I expect that to motivate them to get out to vote. I reach out to leaders in the community as much as possible to maintain good communications and understanding.

Outreach consists of more than "hopefully they'll self-organize." You need to actually engage the Latino community instead of hoping some other local candidate can do it for you. Not a good sign.

Memory Lane

I'm old enough to remember George Bush and Rick Santorum being Arlen Specter's biggest fan. In other words, I'm more than 5 years old.



Specter will probably have to make some grand compromise on Employee Free Choice in order to show his bona fides to labor and a Democratic primary electorate. But hopefully his record won't go completely down the memory hole. Anita Hill, anyone?

...I just threw up.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (Democrat-turned-Independent Democrat, Connecticut) put out this statement welcoming Sen. Arlen Specter (Republican-turned-Democrat, Pennsylvania) to the Dem caucus:

"I enthusiastically welcome my good friend Arlen Specter into the Democratic caucus. It will be very good to have the company of yet another independent minded Democrat in the caucus!

"I have always admired Arlen as a man of deep principle who has been a bridge builder to get things done in the Senate. Arlen understands that we get things accomplished when we listen to the vital center of American politics. I know that Arlen will continue to make a major contribution to the Senate and the nation as an effective independent leader and problem solver."

...Booman has the rundown on Specter's committee assignments, and the fact that he would instantly be the senior Democrat on three committees - Environment, Aging and Veteran's Affairs. I'm pushing for Aging.

SEIU Money Drops Into No on 1A

The SEIU donated $500,000 to the No on 1A campaign, the first truly major expenditure by any group against the ballot measures on May 19. The No on 1A campaign now hold about $1 million in their bank account. While this is dwarfed by the money dumped into the Yes campaign by, among other groups, the CTA, billionaires like Jerry Perenchio, and Chevron, given the attitudes of the electorate even a little money on the No side could be enough to stop the onslaught and tip these measures. Politicos understand this fairly well:

"It just got a lot harder," said Dan Schnur, director of the University of Southern California's Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics and a former Republican strategist.

"The biggest advantage the proponents have had all along is the lack of a well-funded opposition," Schnur said. "Historically, you don't need to outspend ballot measures to beat them, and in a low-turnout election this is a decent amount of money." [...]

"Right now there's a tremendous tendency to reject anything out of Sacramento," said Republican strategist Dave Gilliard.

Good for the SacBee, by the way, for pointing out that Prop. 1A "has a long-term impact and would not directly alter the budget until 2011."

I've been speaking at a lot of grassroots Democratic groups against these measures, purely on the public policy merits, and the overriding sentiment I'm seeing out there lines up with what Dave Gilliard says there. The disconnect between the establishment and the grassroots is truly striking. People don't feel like their concerns have been met, either this year or for the last thirty, really. They see another layer of budget dysfunction forced upon the voters that fails to get at the structural problems. And now, they're starting to see their voices manifested with action, as well as the mother's milk of California politics, money.

Unions Beat Pirates

It was a tailor-made quote for the labor movement, and they picked it up and ran with it.

We're seamen. We're union members. We stuck together and we did our jobs.

Business leaders and their enablers in Congress still want you to believe that unions are scorned by the public. Wrong again. And this kind of reminder is great.

By the way, I like the accommodations I'm seeing in the labor movement toward larger goals. The blue-green alliance on climate issues is one of the more exciting developments in the progressive movement which could spur the development of good, green union jobs, and the historic accord on immigration adds another partner to the coalition. As the face of the average union member is increasingly Hispanic, getting AFL-CIO and Change to Win to support comprehensive immigration reform was almost an imperative for them, but kudos for them triumphing over fear and demonization which has crippled past efforts at coalition-building.

I know that the Employee Free Choice Act appears dead at this point, but this broad coalition that can now demand it has at least the potential to change some minds.

Organizers Getting Organized

The split between the AFL-CIO and the Change To Win federation represented a difference in philosophy, between growing membership of unions and maintaining the best contracts and deals for those dwindling numbers already inside the union structure. It made sense at the time, and has led to membership drives and faster union growth. But eventually, it hit a wall because the institutional barriers to union organizing require a federal response. In that spirit, organized labor is reforming a coalition called the National Labor Coordinating Committee.

Today, the American labor movement proclaimed its intention to come back together -- helped, of course, by the fact that Democrats now control both Congress and the White House and are bent on enacting universal health insurance and, perhaps, some legislation that would make it easier for workers to join unions. After meetings in Maryland this week, the presidents of the two federations and of the nation's 12 largest unions -- including the National Education Association, which heretofore has not belonged to any labor federation -- announced the formation of the National Labor Coordinating Committee, an interim body that could pave the way for labor's reunification by forming a new federation with roughly 16 million members.

The committee will be headed by David Bonior, the former Michigan congressman and House Democratic whip who was the foremost congressional opponent of both the Reagan administration's support for Nicaraguan contras and the Clinton administration's support for free-trade legislation with China and other repressive regimes. Bonior, who headed former senator John Edwards's 2008 presidential campaign, might possibly emerge as the head of the new federation. He is currently president of American Rights at Work, a pro-union advocacy group that has been coordinating the campaign for the Employee Free Choice Act, and he would be an articulate spokesman for a movement that could surely use one.

The union presidents have largely agreed to focus the federation (its name is still up in the air) on the political and lobbying operations at which the AFL-CIO has excelled. They will continue meeting over the next several months to hammer out details -- a timetable that could produce a plan to be ratified at the AFL-CIO's convention in September.

Smart move by the Change to Win leadership, who saw their visions meet with the realities of the workplace and a political structure tilted in the favor of management. The Employee Free Choice Act may be on life support in this Congressional session, thanks to Arlen Specter and Blanche Lincoln, but the labor movement can still make tangible gains through policy, particularly with respect to health care, and having a unified organization will be a big help.

Chris Good has more.

Blanche Lincoln: What's Good For Wal-Mart Is Good For America

Essentially, that's what I take away from her announcement of opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act. Lincoln represents Arkansas, home of Wal-Mart, the most anti-union employer in the country. She was never going to allow this to pass with her support - she voted for it last year precisely because it was clear it would NOT pass. Ryan Powers notes:

The Arkansas-based Wal-Mart corporation had hired a former Blanche Lincoln staffer to lobby against the Employee Free Choice Act. Notably, Lincoln waited until after Vice President Biden helped her raise $800,000 before announcing her opposition to a piece of legislation that both Biden and Obama strongly support.

I'm extremely sick of so-called Democrats consistently voting against the rights of workers.

We Need A Complete Overhaul Of Labor Laws

You know that labor laws have grown completely insufficient and unenforced when the EEOC is routinely violating the rights of its own employees:

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, responsible for ensuring that the nation's workers are treated fairly, has itself willfully violated the Fair Labor Standards Act on a nationwide basis with its own employees, an arbitrator has ruled.

The agency's practice of offering compensatory time off to its employees rather than overtime pay amounted to "forced volunteering" and was a knowing violation of the law, according to the ruling.

"The case before me, in my view, demonstrates action that went beyond mere negligence," arbitrator Steven M. Wolf wrote in a decision released last week.

This is not an isolated incident. While typically, regulatory boards charged with protecting workers aren't simultaneously violating their rights, clearly oversight has fallen short. OSHA barely enforced its own rules on worker safety, leading to multiple unnecessary deaths. The Wage And Hour Division failed to follow up on wage violations flagged by undercover agents posing as workers. Our regulatory structure is corroded, and needs a full overhaul.

Under the leadership of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, things are starting to change. Prevailing wages under the Davis-Bacon Act have been applied to the federal stimulus package, meaning that hundreds of thousands of construction workers will be paid what they're worth. And the regulatory agencies will get staff concerned more with enforcing laws than shielding corporations from them. Obviously the dim prospects for the Employee Free Choice Act is disheartening - although labor continues to press forward with national ads, and allies in the civil rights community are advocating for it as well - but there are additional parts of the labor laws in America where we can make progress.

Feinstein's Dishonest Spin on Employee Free Choice

At The Plum Line, Greg Sargent takes a look at Dianne Feinstein's lack of support for the Employee Free Choice Act. She remains the only Congressional Democrat from California not to co-sponsor the bill, and according to her spokesman, she's looking for the mythical bipartisanship pony.

“I have thought for some time that the way to approach this issue is by trying to see if there can’t be a compromise between the business community, the agriculture community and labor. This is an extraordinarily difficult economy and feelings are very strong on both sides of the issue. I would hope there is some way to find common ground that would be agreeable to both business and labor.”

This is complete nonsense. Employers are firing workers who try to organize. They intimidate workers into voting against their better interests. One out of every four unions elections were marred by illegal firings in 2007. I don't know how you can possibly reconcile the two sides given that scenario.

Furthermore, the invocation of the "difficult economy" is another red herring. Sen. Tom Harkin has already done away with this nonsense by pulling out his history book.

The bill's supporters are pointing to the downturn as the ultimate proof of their arguments that labor's decline has helped put the economy out of balance and that only by restoring workers' purchasing power can the nation return to broadly shared prosperity.

"In 1935, we passed the Wagner Act that promoted unionization and allowed unions to flourish, and at the time we were at around 20 percent unemployment. So tell me again why we can't do this in a recession?" said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), invoking the pro-labor changes of the New Deal. "This is the time to do it. This is exactly the time we should be insisting on a fairer playing field for people to organize themselves."

Because of Sen. Specter's announced opposition, the Employee Free Choice Act faces an uphill battle. But at the very least, Californians should expect that all of their representatives in Washington would understand the need to strengthen unions as a means to strengthening the overall middle class, increasing wages and BOOSTING, not hurting the economy. Feinstein has a choice to make, and you can sign this letter from the Courage Campaign to let her know you're watching her.

Dear Senator Dianne Feinstein,

In this time of economic crisis, we are distressed to hear that you have not yet endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act, especially as conservatives launch a massive campaign to discredit and oppose the bill.

The Employee Free Choice Act, which you co-sponsored and voted for in 2007, is a centerpiece of progressive efforts to help working Americans recover from this economic crisis. As in the Great Depression, the best way to rebuild the middle class is to allow workers to form unions. Workers covered by a union contract have better wages and benefits. Non-union workers benefit from these higher standards when unions are strong in their areas.

We, the undersigned, call upon you to endorse and to co-sponsor the Employee Free Choice Act. We ask that you join President Barack Obama, Senator Barbara Boxer, the entire California Democratic delegation in the House of Representatives, members of labor unions and progressives across America in ensuring that this act becomes law in 2009.