Wal-Mart’s worries center on a piece of legislation known as the Employee Free Choice Act, which companies say would enable unions to quickly add millions of new members. “We believe EFCA is a bad bill and we have been on record as opposing it for some time,” Mr. Tovar said. “We feel educating our associates about the bill is the right thing to do.”
Other companies and groups are also making a case against the legislation to workers. Laundry company Cintas Corp., which has been fighting a multiyear organizing campaign by Unite Here, relaunched a Web site July 14 called CintasVotes. The site instructs visitors to take action by telling members of Congress to oppose the legislation.
Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win - WSJ.com
It sounds bad, but this is actually very good news, in that it indicates that our corporate pals, who do read the fine print, seem certain that the Employee Free Choice Act will pass very soon in an Obama administration. Among other things, the EFCA would put some teeth in the protections for unionizing workers and greatly simplify the union ratification process.
A quick search on the act yields links to every right-wing site Orwellian mishmash on the web; another good sign for the efficacy of the bill. The AFL-CIO site is the best place to vaccinate yourself with the facts and the basic ideas before you take a dip in la la land.
The reason for all of this below-the-radar fuss is that if the obstacles to union membership were reduced, there might be a huge swell in organizing. One Gallup poll done a few years ago suggested that 58% of Americans would join a union if they could. That would be change well beyond Obama.
