Grassroots Toolkit

Messaging

With Congress taking a week-long recess over Memorial Day week from May 25 to May 29, do not let up the pressure in your state.  The fight to defeat this bill is moving from Washington back to the states and it is crucial that Members of Congress hear from you because the unions are making sure their voices are heard.

• There is currently no acceptable compromise on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and it is critically important to continue expressing united opposition to EFCA and all compromise versions of the bill that deny workers a secret ballot and forces harmful biding arbitration.  Recently, during a speech in New Mexico, President Obama conceded that “there aren’t enough votes in the Senate to get it passed,” and that the White House is trying to work a “compromise” deal.  Read the article here.
  
  
  • Senator Arlen Specter (D- PA) is actively working on variations of EFCA and recently noted, according to the AP, that “prospects are pretty good” for reaching a compromise.    See this Wall Street Journal story that lays out proposals from Senator Specter.  These new versions of EFCA perfectly show the trap that is set by "compromise" discussions.  Senator Specter is proposing the use of mail-in union authorization cards.  The National Labor Relations Board currently uses mail-in ballots in place of secret ballot elections held on the employer’s premises in rare circumstances where “eligible voters are scattered . . .  over a wide geographic area” or are otherwise “not present at a common location at common times” – and only then after considering various other factors.  NLRB career staff has mentioned several problems with the mail-in ballots, including “the potential interference by any party in a mail ballot situation…”  To top it off, statistics substantially lower participation rates by potential voters in mail-in ballots than in secret ballot elections.  Senator Specter is also floating "last best offer" arbitration.  While this differs somewhat from the original EFCA, binding arbitration still gives a government bureaucrat the ability to impose a labor contract---wages, hours, work rules, pension, etc---on American entrepreneurs.  Moreover, in choosing which offer is the most reasonable, the arbitrators will look to other unionized employers in the industry.  For example, if you are an auto maker, your offer will be compared to Ford, GM and Chrysler’s contracts, not their nonunion competitors.  CDW members who have a presence in PA should contact Senator Specter to let him know that this version of EFCA is just as bad as the original.
    
    
• The Employee Free Choice Act is a solution in search of a problem.  According to an analysis of National Labor Relations Board data by BNA PLUS, The Bureau of National Affairs research division, found that union win rates rose significantly in 2008 and the number of elections held also increased.  More from the BNA PLUS analysis [as reported in the Bureau of National Affairs]:
  
  
  • The union win rate increased to 66.8 percent in 2008, up from 60.4 percent in 2007.  This is the highest win rate since 1955 when unions won 67.6 percent of elections.
  • Unions have won more than half of all representation elections in each of the past 12 years.
  • NLRB conducted 1,579 elections in 2008, compared with 1,519 in 2007.
  • The number of voters eligible to participate in the elections increased from 102,494 in 2007 to 108,587 in 2008.
  • In 2008, unions organized 70,511 workers through NLRB elections, up from 58,260 the year before.
    
  
  

Action

1. Send this CDW OpEd from the May 19th Washington Post to your state media lists to continue to reinforce the point there is no acceptable compromise to EFCA.
   
   
2. Send this press release to your state media lists reinforcing that EFCA is a solution in search of a problem.
   
   
3. Distribute this handout to your coalition member employees and interested parties.
   
   
4. Go to www.myprivateballot.com and send as many emails, letters, and calls into your Senators and House of Representatives Members offices as possible.  The goal should be at least 100 calls and 100 emails/letters per day. Download the EFCA target state delegation contact list.
   
   
5. Send OpEd and Letters to the Editor to your local newspapers.  
   OpEd   |  LTE 1   |  LTE 2   |  LTE 3
   
   
6. Schedule Editorial Board meetings with your local papers.
   
   
7. If you have the funds, run one of these print advertisements in your local paper.  Should you have the financing, CDW can provide you with the artwork and place the ad in the paper through a contact who gets reduced rates based on their volume.
   Ad 1   |  Ad 2   |  Ad 3