Card-Check

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Yeah, I'm mystified by this bill as well. I don't see how anyone in their right mind could support it -- especially if you're in a union.

Union rank-and-file have some mixed feelings on this. Yes, it provides them a powerful tool for the number one goal of any union -- ORGANIZE. However, if they ever do end up with a union election that's really close and really contentious, it would make it easier for the eventual winner to exact payback.

Union leadership, particularly at the international level, sees no down side. The goal is -- regardless of state law -- a closed shop. The ability to apply pressure makes it more likely that every worker would be a union member and that they'd all singing from the same hymn book. Strikes and threats thereof work much better as a leverage tool when the company KNOWS that 98% of their workforce will not cross a picket line. When that happens, it ripples up the ladder to the international headquarters. Greater centralization of union power under spells politicla leverage. The AFL-CIO very much wants to establish the kind of relationship towards government and employers that is enjoyed by the national labor leadership of -- for example -- Norway.

Ask HoreTore what happens when the Norwegian union leadership makes a "suggestion" to government.

The Democrat party sees little downside since Union Leadership support for the Democrat party has been staunch since FDR. They are rewarding strong political supporters in a means that ties in with their philosophy of regulated/controlled capitalism and the idea of a "living wage."

This is a means to effect a fundamental change in the nature of U.S. society, one that will more it decidedly in the direction of the Scandanavian model. We will see how directly the new administration wishes to support such an effort -- we are already aware that a goodly segment of the Democrat party sees this as the correct line of development.