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?

The Mask Comes Off

As regular readers and commentators on the politics of Mark Udall, we find it interesting that the conventional msm/blog wisdom is that Bill Ritter is a moderate and that Udall is to the left of Ritter.

This past Friday, even the tone deaf and politically blind who write for the msm and for liberal blogs had to note the political earthquake set off by Ritter when he unionized by fiat Colorado state workers.

Both the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post endorsed Ritter as a supposed moderate. Hell has no fury like a newspaper editor scorned.

It will be both interesting and entertaining to see if either tries to endorse Mark Udall, and if so, how they go about it. Will they adopt the once burned, twice shy attitude that would seem reasonable, or will they put their credibility on the line with Udall as they did with Ritter by claiming that Udall is something he is not, and no one claims him to be, including Mark Udall?

There is a fake Chinese curse regarding living in "interesting times." We do.

Union Campaign Contributions and Udall's "Serious Reservations"

A watcher has published a letter from Boulder liberal Rep. Mark Udall to constituent Ralph Shnelvar about Udall's co-sponsorship of the ill-named Employee Free Choice Act, and asks the question: "Whose vote is really for sale?"

But then again, one can raise the same question from Udall's House of Representatives floor speech on the same bill:

Madam Speaker, I will vote for this bill. It can help working people, and it will send a strong message that we need a National Labor Relations Board committed to fairness in the workplace.

But as I said 2 years ago, I have serious reservations about lessening the role of the secret ballot in union elections. Workers should not be intimidated by pressure from either business or labor in making decisions about organizing a union.

However, it is clear that the NLRB has clearly failed to protect workers from intimidation and union-busting. That is why I support this bill even though it is far from perfect.

And while I support the rule because it allows the House to consider some meaningful amendments, I am disappointed that others were not included. For example, I thought we ought to have made changes to make the procedure for decertifying unions like those for establishing unions. We should also have considered setting deadlines for NLRB decisions.

I would hope those amendments, and others, maybe even a sunset clause, will be considered in the Senate not only because they could improve this legislation but because open debate on amendments might help reduce the divisions and polarization about this bill.

But the House should pass the bill, imperfect though it is, so the Senate can continue the process of reforming our labor laws to better protect workers' rights while also working towards balance, fairness, and objectivity in the way that the NLRB must do its job.

Rep. Udall had "serious reservations" about taking away workers' right to the secret ballot. But what role did $75,000 in campaign contributions from Big Labor play in quieting his conscience and downplaying his "serious reservations"? In any case, the Boulder Democrat sounds very conflicted.

Even the reliably liberal Denver Post editorial board called Udall on the carpet for his co-sponsorship of the bill:

And Udall, who wants to be Colorado’s next senator, should know that elections here are won by wooing over moderate, independent-minded voters. Casting votes like this won’t help. The proposal died only after Senate Democrats could attract only one Republican vote, from Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter, to stop a GOP filibuster against the bill.

The misnamed Employee Free Choice Act also would have denied workers the right to a secret ballot on the question of whether they want to be represented by a union at all. The measure, which passed the House 241-185, is sure to be back because organized labor has made it the top priority in the new Democratic-controlled Congress.

But the tenets of the bill aren’t Western values, and our lawmakers should oppose this unprecedented intrusion of federal power into the collective bargaining process and private workplaces.

I can almost hear the campaign ad now: "Mark Udall... in line with a special interest agenda, out of step with Western values."

Tonight's Trip Around the Blogosphere

1. The Rocky's editorial yesterday seems to have shut down the left wing's self-generated frenzy claiming that Schaffer sold his vote.

2. The name calling continues, with three blogs adding to our count today. If the left wing blogs want to sully their reputation with childish name calling, we will help them. The score will go up next weekend.

3. David Sirota keeps rewriting the same post with the same links to his own stuff. One gets the impression that he really doesn't know Colorado all that well. That isn't surprising given that he just moved here. We've stopped following his links out of boredom. He seems to have lost his Gang of Four platform as the Post appears to have shut it down effective August 18th.

4. Sirota was part of the left wing echo chamber shoving the Schaffer stuff along. We wonder if he will devote any attention to the Mark Udall scandal involving $75,000 in union contributions. Will we see strident calls that Udall return the money? Probably not, because ethics and consistency are not strong points among left wing bloggers.