>> ^Lolthien:
>> Okay, you are much less an informed person than WP..

You're saying that because I disagree with you, which is a rather silly thing to say, since you're wrong.

1. 'read a poll sometime' I have just as many polls available saying middle class people approve of healthcare reform as I have polls that say the opposite. Also, no polls anywhere refer to 'Obamacare'.
That word just shows you have very little original thought and are using regurgitated Fox News drivel to argue against something you haven't bothered to inform yourself about.

What an amazingly powerful argument. The possibility hasn't suggested itself to you that 1) I don't watch Fox News (except at the gym, which is all that they have on), 2) I have informed myself as much as possible about the issue, 3) I think Obamacare is the perfect name for it, and 4) I have read the polls, and people don't support it. Hell, the NYT showed 70% of people were worried about Obamacare. Not that it matters to Rachel Maddow, since all those people must be part of the Republican Secret Masters of the Earth organization.

2. I have to challenge you to submit evidence that she said anything about ending secret ballots being pro-labor, and also challenge you to present evidence that the Employee Free Choice act does nothing besides end secret ballots.
3. I submit that you, sir, are a troll of rather poor talent.

Pot, Kettle.

She said the EFCA was a pro-labor bill, when it is anything but. If she had said it was a pro-union bill, then yes, absolutely true.

There's a good summary of why it is anti-labor here:
http://www.heritage.org/research/labor/bg2027.cfm

(And yes, I know the Heritage foundation is right-wing, but it's a good summary of why the bill is bad for workers.)

EFCA does *not* eliminate secret ballot elections.

"The Employee Free Choice Act preserves "secret ballot" elections, but also ensures that workers, not CEOs, decide whether to form a union at work through "majority sign-up." Right now, even when a majority of employees in a workplace sign cards saying they want to form a union and have them certified by the federal agency that oversees labor law, the company can decide that workers have to do it all again months later by forcing them to hold an election."

This really doesn't change anything other than the official number of democrats in the senate. Specter's voting is unlikely to change, so I doubt the dems will be able to break a filibuster on EFCA anytime soon.

What I find more significant was Specter talking about how the Repubs are moving in a more conservative direction and that moderates are becoming less welcome in the party. Apparently they think that their recent losses were due to Americans viewing them as "not conservative enough".

As much as Specter is doing this for his own political gain, I don't see many in the Republican party crying about it. If he hadn't left then he probably would have been forced out eventually.

^ Yeah, I happened to have read the statement behind the link I put in my own post.

I'm thinking more about cap & trade and healthcare than about EFCA.

While I agree, Specter had always been fairly moderate/independent, Republicans were putting up a fairly strong primary challenge to him this year. He essentially confessed in his press conference that the main impetus for him changing was because he looked all but certain to lose the primary.

He's still got to win the Democratic primary though, and that means he can't really stick it to the unions, or they're liable to back a more progressive candidate.

I'm thinking that after the Dems set up a vote for the full-strength version so he can keep his promise to sink it via filibuster, he'll wind up supporting a slightly watered-down version of EFCA.

Regardless, I'm sure there will be (and have been) a huge number of deals and compromises worked out -- in many ways the Dems didn't need or want him to flip. They were solidly on track to win Specter's seat in 2010 anyways, and could have done so with a much more liberal candidate than Specter.

So Specter will find that while Democrats won't demand absolute obedience, they will want him to at least help invoke cloture on most of the larger issues. If he won't play ball at least on that level, Democrats can fix that problem in 2010 fairly easily, without having given up anything in the meantime.

>> ^blankfist:
^No. No. Absolutely not. That's my point. No collusion to create unfair legislation.


Except that Grover Norquist and his ilk are not going to stop influencing our politics, so unions have every right to be as political as they want to be.

If you talk about unions in any business here in America there is a 90% chance that you will be fired within the week.

The only way the working class is going to get ahead is by organizing.

Funny how everyone here is dancing around the whole right to privacy issue. The EFCA title is bullshit. Why not just call it the Union Approval Intimidation Act?

>> ^blankfist:
^No. No. Absolutely not. That's my point. No collusion to create unfair legislation.


Who decides what's unfair legislation, and how do I become one of those people?

>> ^blankfist:
Mainly I don't agree with collusion to create legislation to restrict and regulate the rights of either the individual worker, the unionized workers, or the business owner(s).


But it's okay for the business owners to "collude" by way of lobbying, but not the working class?

>> ^rougy:
>> ^blankfist:
Blah, who cares if people want to join unions or not, as long as they don't affect legislation.

Why not?


Mainly I don't agree with collusion to create legislation to restrict and regulate the rights of either the individual worker, the unionized workers, or the business owner(s).

>> ^blankfist:
Blah, who cares if people want to join unions or not, as long as they don't affect legislation.


Millions and millions and millions of people, their families, friends, and the neighborhoods they all live in, the stores they shop at, the banks they borrow from, the industries they support, and .... oh fuck it.

Joe is an idiot, and apparently he canceled his appearance later that day, probably because he realized he has no fucking clue of anything and should probably just stfu.

>> ^blankfist:
Blah, who cares if people want to join unions or not, as long as they don't affect legislation.


Why not?

>> ^jwray:
The trouble with those exclusive contracts that prohibit employers from hiring nonunion employees is that the if the employees become unsatisfied with the union they can't quit it to form a different union without losing their jobs. It's a monopoly. So the union can be as corrupt and inefficient as it wants and the employees in the industry can't divest from the union without moving to a different industry where they have no experience.

That's a change to unions I could agree with, though I'd probably want the EFCA to be wrapped in with that, so it's trivially easy to form a new union.