GOP Blocks Obama's Labor Nominee, Pushes Big Lie on "Card Check"

Despite rising unemployment and a cratering economy, the GOP has placed a hold on the nomination of President Obama's choice for Secretary of Labor, the pro-worker Hilda Solis. The issue at stake is the Employee Free Choice Act, which aims to give workers a level playing field by allowing workers to choose a majority sign-up approach, dubbed "card check" by anti-union flacks, for selecting a union -- rather than keeping that option in the hands of employers.

But the original Wagner Act in the 1930s gave workers the right to use a majority sign-up process if they so choose, rather than the current election system that allows widespread intimidation by employers.

Studies of hundreds of organizing campaigns have found that a fifth of all pro-union activists are fired during a campaign, half of all employers threaten to shut down their plant and roughly 80% of employers hire unionbusting consultants. Employers are still free under the proposed Employee Free Choice Act to hold intimidating one-on-one "sweat" sessions to legally discourage workers from joining a union. And, as I found out while going undercover to a unionbusting seminar, it's equally legal for employers to just lie about the dire consequences facing workers if they join a union, from closed plants to somehow losing seniority and benefits. That's the system the Employee Free Choice Act was designed to reform, by increasing penalties for corporate lawbreaking, allowing employees to choose the majority sign-up approach but still retaining the employees' rights to hold a secret-ballot NLRB election if they want.

As part of a low-keyed effort to push Solis's nomination forward (she's still likely to be selected, after all) some union activists have put together a Facebook page to express support for her, along with contact information on reaching your Senators to give your views on her nomination:

"Americans for Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor" http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47640477946

We support a swift Senate confirmation of Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor.

The mission of the Department of Labor is to foster and promote the welfare of U.S. employees and retirees by improving their working conditions and protecting their benefits, helping employers find workers and strengthening free collective bargaining.

We believe Hilda Solis is the best choice to lead and inspire the 16,600 Department of Labor employees in support of the rights of working Americans.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions held its first confirmation hearing for Secretary of Labor-Designate Hilda Solis on January 9, 2009. Go to the link below to view the question and answer portion of the hearing.

http://help.senate.gov/Hearings/2009_01_09/solis.pdf

Comments appreciated. Calls, e-mails, and letters to your U.S. Senators would be even better. Join "Americans for Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor" on Facebook and post statements of support.

To find up to date contact information for your U.S. Senators and other elected officials go to:

http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

Another Facebook group supporting Solis is:

"1,000,000 Strong For Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor":

Here's the Website

The GOP's opposition to Solis is aided by right-wing and mainstream media outlets echoing the business groups' talking points and lies. You can read more about the media spin in an In These Times article here. Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake and Media Matters have been especially vigorous in their coverage, but no one matches Hamsher's much-needed bite in skewering reporters' mindless repetition of the Big Lies of conservatives. Some of their whoppers, backed with $200 million worth of paid ads and lobbying: The Employee Free Choice Act takes away the secret ballot, names of those who signed cards authorizing a union are shown to employers and posted in the workplace (they're held confidentially by the National Labor Relations Board representative), unions weaken the economy in a time of peril, ad nauseum. (Here are the facts about the legislation the anti-union PR blitz seeks to override.)