Hilda Solis' confirmation as labor secretary is being stalled

It looks like the Republicans are listening to their big business masters, and doing their darndest to stall the confirmation of Hilda Solis.

They're really fighting dirty, trying to throw every small thing in her way. They didn't pull any of this crap when Larry Summers was picked because he's pro-business.

Add in the fact that Obama leans pro-business, and it should be pretty obvious that Solis needs to be in the cabinet to provide some balance.

Help her out: Stand for Solis

Card Check

I think you are correct that the real opposition to Solis is over her politics and not her husband's tax record. By itself, the charges probably wouldn't have much traction. She has the misfortune of following a number of higher-profile tax dodgers.

Seems somewhat pointless to

Seems somewhat pointless to send an e-mail to the Senate. Our two senators are definite YES votes. The ones who are most likely to vote NO are the ones who will assume all the e-mails urging confirmation are coming from CA or NY or MA or someplace else that doesn't affect them.

SEIU is also running a

SEIU is also running a campaign to confirm Hilda Solis as labor Secretary.

Solis Confirmation Moving Forward?

Several reports out of Washington (but only one that I can link to for free) say a floor vote on Rep. Solis' confirmation as Labor Secretary may finally occur, perhaps by the end of the week.

Solis the champion of Small Business

Looking at some of the comments you would think that Hilda was a commie co-conspiritor with big labour.

He background is the workingman and small business.

How many big business expos has she sponsored.

How many job fairs and small business events?

However the checkoff is un-american.
Secret ballot- no intimidation by either side.

Reality is, intimidation happens

The reality is that intimidation happens, people get fired, and the employees get propagandized heavily between the time the union petitions for recognition and the election to recognize the union as the collective bargaining agent.

This "card check" amendment to the law doesn't get rid of the secret ballot. The election language remains intact, but it puts leverage onto the union's side because if the majority want a union, the card drive will happen, and the union will be in immediately.

Also, the cards, I believe, are not made public.

Besides, there's really little anonymity in campaigns like this. The workplace is small, and both the union and the company have a pretty clear idea of how most people are voting. They both do a lot of informal polling. If someone is on "your side" they will say so.

I think this would affect mostly campaigns where:

1. The employer will not honor a card check (when signed cards expressing a desire are signed and mailed to the NLRB). At this time, many employers agree to a simple card check.

2. Ongoing campaigns that keep getting appealed to the NLRB.

It won't affect situations where the organizing is "top-down" - where the union negotiates with the employer without much input from the workers. It also won't affect situations where there's not enough support to get a majority of cards.

It also won't affect small businesses, unless they are relatively high-wage businesses. That's because the big unions don't try to organize small businesses. There's not enough revenue. If a small business is organized, it's probably because the owner was okay with it (or wanted to pay into the union health care and pension plans rather than hire an HR person to administer that stuff).

It also won't affect workplaces that are not predominantly pro-union. If the union can't get a solid majority, they'll just go elsewhere -- only 10% of workers are in unions, so there are plenty of better places to organize. Why waste time and money trying to propagandize them?

If Employee Free Choice passes, then, unions will quickly start to organize, and both unions and business will go into permanent campaign mode -- there will be ongoing information campaigns from the business groups and the unions. Wages in non-union shops will probably increase a little bit.

Also, note that "card check" was the way unions were organized until the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 amended the law to add the "secret ballot". So this law really brings back an old way of voting for or against a union - by signing a card, or not.

Finally, the process to decertify, or remove, the union from a workplace can be done by petition. If a majority of workers sign a petition to decertify, then, the union is virtually decertified. The decertification process basically works like card check - just put one signature line per copy of the petition to preserve anonymity.[1]