This is the third and final installment in a three-part series on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) published on Global Investment Watch.
Corporate Propaganda in the Information Age
One of the great benefits of the Internet is that it is the ultimate equalizer against corporate misinformation. It allows citizen activists and public interest groups to quickly and cost-effectively counteract right-wing propaganda. While companies shell out gobs of money to glitzy public relations firms to produce misleading TV infomercials and radio ads these days, organizers in the progressive community are reaching millions of citizens every day by tapping away on their keyboards and posting low-cost videos on You Tube – in real time, no delay. With these new, more flexible methods of communication comes the potential to dramatically increase the power of the message and saturate the marketplace of ideas and opinion building.
Corporations and their misinformation peddlers have a real problem right now. Traditional forms of media – daily newspapers, weekly magazines, television and radio – no longer reach audiences once their exclusive domain. Today, a myriad of communication channels have opened up for organizers and policy advocates, making it far easier to interact with a much larger audience on a global scale. Internet-based tools for successful communication have radically changed the playing field for progressive groups, enhancing the effectiveness of campaigns in dramatic ways. The fight over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – legislation that would enhance the nation’s middle class at the cost of the corporate elite – is a case in point.
This is the second installment in a three-part series on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The third and final installment will be published next Wednesday on Global Investment Watch.
A Dress Rehearsal for the Big Day
In March of 2007, organized labor forced a dry-run on its top legislative agenda – comprehensive labor law reform. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) handily 241 to 185 (bill H.R. 800). The House voted pretty much along party lines with only two southern democrats “dissenting” (Dan Boren of Oklahoma and Gene Taylor of Mississippi). In the Senate, the bill met more opposition as it was filibustered successfully after only 51 Senators voted for cloture, nine less than the required 60 (note: one Democrat, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, was absent so they were really only eight away). Truth be told, the legislation had little chance of making it through Senate then. Plus, President Bush would have vetoed it anyway.
What that 2007 vote did, however, was to shape labor’s money spending strategy for the 2008 election cycle. Namely, that dress rehearsal helped the AFL-CIO’s political affairs department pinpoint precisely who could be counted on to back EFCA, who opposes it outright, and who is still on the fence. Now that Democrats are coming off successful election victories at virtually all levels of state and federal government, the playing field is very different. Both the Senate and the House have many more Democrats than they did in 2007 and the battle lines look far more favorable for passage of EFCA than they did just a few months ago. Most importantly, labor now has an apparent ally for working people in the Office of the President.
At present, organized labor seems within tortuous reach of having the required votes in the Senate to pass EFCA (the bill is safe in the House). In November, the Democratic party picked up eight seats in the Senate (Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, and – for now – Minnesota). That gets them to the 60 necessary to avoid a filibuster.So passage is a done deal, right? Not so fast.
Am I surprised? No. Disgusted? Yes. Yet I have been disgusted so many times during eight years of the Bush administration that my disgust is automatic. We have all heard that the Bush administration is trying to do as much damage as possible before riding into the sunset. In a specific instance reported in the New York Times, The Labor Department is scurrying to complete a new rule, adamantly opposed by President-elect Barack Obama that would make it much harder for the government to regulate toxic substances and hazardous chemicals that workers encounter on the job. The proposal applies to two agencies in the Labor Department, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration.
In the November 30 New York Times article Robert Pear wrote, “The rule, which has strong support from business groups, says that in assessing the risk from a particular substance, federal agencies should gather and analyze “industry-by-industry evidence” of employees’ exposure to it during their working lives…Public health officials and labor unions said the rule would delay needed protections for workers, resulting in additional deaths and illnesses.”
The administration and business interests deny that they are attempting to undermine worker safety, by suggesting that the situation is more nuanced because they need to spend years and years looking at different industries. In his article Mr. Pear quoted Margaret M. Seminario, director of occupational safety and health for the AFL-CIO, “This rule is being pushed through by an administration that, for the last seven and a half years, has failed to set any new OSHA health rules to protect workers, except for one issued pursuant to a court order.” Apparently nuance in this case is code for unbridled greed on behalf of the corporate bottom line.
Let’s hope that it is too late to finalize this and many other regulations that suddenly became top priorities once it was clear that Obama is taking over the White House. Otherwise, there will be one more item to add to Obama’s unimaginably daunting “to do” list — trying to clean up after Bush’s last minute farewells. Most people wave goodbye with their hands when they leave. George Bush seems to be using only one finger.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve heard President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and various lawmakers declare that the root cause of the current financial crisis stems from illiquid assets related to mortgage-backed securities. But what does this really mean? And how can this “radioactive waste” be purged from the balance sheets of financial institutions holding these toxic securities.
John Sweeney, President of the AFL-CIO, responded to the original version of the bailout by describing it as “dangerous and ill-conceived.” Critics of the original proposal emphasize that the final plan must include limitations on executive pay and improved governance of public companies, taxpayer equity in distressed companies, independent Congressional oversight and a stimulus package designed to create more jobs.
Will the final $700 billion bailout plan resolve the fundamental cause of the crisis? What should the future relationship be between lawmakers in Washington DC and bankers on Wall Street? And how will the crisis impact the Presidential election? Dan Pedrotty, Director of the AFL-CIO’s Office of Investment, joins us to answer these questions and more.
The PBS show NOW recently featured an excellent first hand account of the battle for real regulation of Wall Street and relief for Main Street. Watch the special Behind the Bailout.
In a letter to PetroChina CEO Jiang Jiemin, Florida State Board of Administration Senior Corporate Governance Officer Michael McCauley and AFL-CIO President John Sweeney call on the largest oil company in China to take responsibility for its actions in the two biggest human rights hot-spots in the world: Burma and the Sudan.
