Thursday, June 12, 2008

Mark Udall's Cynical Sponsorship of Big Labor Bill Back in the Spotlight

An astute letter writer from Grand Junction reminds readers of Boulder liberal Mark Udall's cynical sponsorship of legislation that would deprive workers of secret ballots in union workplace elections:
Virtually every Democratic candidate this year, including Mark Udall and Barack Obama, are pushing for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which is a massive handout to organized labor. EFCA would eliminate the private-ballot vote when unionizing a workplace and put in place a system where workers could be intimidated and pressured into signing petitions for unionization.
On the same day, the Denver Post reports that state government has become unionized by the votes of a small minority of workers:
About 6,900 state workers from a pool of 22,500 who were eligible participated in the election, which gave them a choice between Colorado WINS or no union representation. Of those, 5,481 supported the union.

The results were based only on the number of votes cast, but even those who did not vote will now be represented by the union — regardless of whether they pay the voluntary union dues.
Last November we speculated that Gov. Bill Ritter's executive order that set the state employee unionization process in motion may have been done in part to take political heat off Mark Udall. Has the heat been turned back on?

2 comments:

Kel1964 said...

Wow, I didn’t know this issue was going to be raised again in 2009… I guess I should have known though. What the Dems, including our own Congressman Udall, won’t do for union money. Absolutely unbelievable. I can’t even imagine how union membership will increase if this bill passes, not to mention the union revenue produced (which will in turn be given to Democrats). Mark Udall and Barack Obama should be ashamed of supporting EFCA.

HockeyPlayer79 said...

If the heat isn't on Udall, it should be! The coming election will have massive labor implications for Colorado. With Amendment 47 the people have a chance to vote directly to keep production-robbing unions out of our businesses, and with the Employee Free Choice Act, the people have a clear choice to vote for candidates that do not support the streamlining of unionization and take away the Right of the people to a private ballot (in 2007 when it passed the House and barely failed the Senate, the Colorado democrat delegation all voted in favor of EFCA) We must vote against Big Labor puppets Mark Udall and the rest of the Dems.