newsobserver.com projects - card check - Comments

Re: Hagan: Not enough votes for card check

mountainman — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 22:01:40 -0400

That movie deliverance, with Ned Beatty kept folks away from our mountains back in the 70's and 80's. Then you left wing liberal freaks decided that you love to have a little chase and play piggy in a mountain laurel thicket.

Yes, MountainMan?

Gosh — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 00:05:37 -0400

gosh you can dish it out, but you can't take it!!!

I'm fully aware that in your one particular area of expertise I'm Ned Beatty. Problem for you is, in this one, you're mine.

Now squeal like a pig for me until you have a budget with numbers, and a plan to do something but send jobs overseas.

Squeeeeeeal Republican. Squeal like a pig. Come on!

Re: Hagan: Not enough votes for card check

mountainman — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 18:04:46 -0400

gosh you can dish it out, but you can't take it!!!

Re: Hagan: Not enough votes for card check

Gosh — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:36:06 -0400

It's amazing to me that Hagen even won with Internet posters like "MountainMan" and "BitterEXDemocrat" posting such logical points as this.

Hagen you make sick!!!!!!!

I mean what has this nation come to when fringe elements with Internet access don't supersede Democratic elections?

Re: Hagan: Not enough votes for card check

mountainman — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:10:28 -0400

Hagen you make sick!!!!!!!you are a communist or something worse. The secret ballot insures individuals right to vote as they see fit without being intimidated by a bunch of pro-union thugs!!!! But of course you know that already without me pointing out. I know your game, the unions control workers and their vote, now I am getting at the truth. The democrat communist congress controls the unions, Lord Obama controls congress!!! So you can basicly elect yourself. Keep printing money and soon we will be speaking chineese. The only good thing about that is the people will be rid of you and that bunch of parasites in washington.

Re: Hagan: Not enough votes for card check

BitterEXdemocrat — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:16:25 -0400

Hagan is UNFIT FOR SERVICE ! ! !

Re: Saying no to EFCA? Thanks for undermining Democracy!

RichardWhitehead — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:13:04 -0400

Well, I am not going to take your response too seriously. From my experience, people that attack the messenger and not the message are usually diverting attention from the fact that they do not have a worthwhile argument from the outset. You do this in two places: 1) You assume that because I posted the comment last week that I actually spent a month laboring over a response. Get real! Did you even read what I wrote, because you really say nothing about it? 2) You attack the CEPR based on your perception of the institute’s political leaning rather than critics based on the data’s empirical or methodological merits. Furthermore, just because you use the term “liberal” means nothing, since so many see anything to the left of Fox News as a bastion of leftwing liberalism. The term, as you use it, is devoid of anything concrete.

In short, if you’re going to actually respond, maybe you need to be the one to take a few weeks and formulate concrete arguments. The only thing of substance you post is a quote from the Heritage Foundation (and you never quote anything anyway) and the questions about GM and BMW plants, What’s your point with these question? Maybe you should be the one to sort out the argument, rather than relying on me. As far as the legal recourse under the current system, have you ever gone through that process? The fact that you defend it as a viable remedy against management intimidation tells me you never did.

Re: Hagan: Not enough votes for card check

rusty_shackleford — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:27:52 -0400

So private voting isn't an American heritage anymore? Even the new government in Iraq allows their citizens to cast votes in private.

After we've seen how well the Unions have helped the auto industry, why do we want more of that kind of influence? Oh yeah, votes for Dems. My bad.

Re: Saying no to EFCA? Thanks for undermining Democracy!

CitizenOpinionated — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 09:27:27 -0400

First of all, I am glad that it took you approximately a month to formulate your thoughts on the matter, but hell I will bite and play with you.

If someone is illegally fired, do they have the option of going through the court system? The CEPR is nothing short of a liberal think tank, so I can automatically respond with a quote from the Heritage Foundation, which touts how high union intimidation has gotten in recent years.

How much do union workers make in Detroit at the GM plant?

How much do comparable workers make in South Carolina at the BMW plant?

Saying no to EFCA? Thanks for undermining Democracy!

RichardWhitehead — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 06:18:54 -0400

I must admit that I am a bit baffled by a few of the routine comments in opposition to card check made by the Chamber of Commerce officials and even others, such as former Democratic Senator George McGovern. Whether one agrees or disagrees with card check, one analogy in particular should be mystifying to anyone with an elementary understanding of the politics of unionizing.

The primary objection to card check was framed something like this:
BECAUSE CARD CHECK CAN GO FROM PETITION STRAIGHT TO UNIONIZATION, it will THREATEN THE RIGHT OF WORKERS to cast "SECRET BALLOTS" in deciding whether or not to unionize, thus undermining a core democratic spirit of the unionization process.

This is simply NONSENSE! The primary assumption of the argument is that the presence of a secret ballot means that the process is itself democratic. With this line of argument, the EFCA opponents are already running into troubles. If that is indeed the case (i.e. secret ballots = democracy), we have just added Zimbabwe, Kazakhstan, Iran, Afghanistan, and many others to our list of democratic countries. In most of these cases, the secret ballot is a regularized election practice. Yet, given the periodic jailing and disenfranchisement of those that dissent against the “powers that be,” I would hardly consider any of them to have free and fair elections.
So, if democratic elections are more than a secret ballot, how close does the current law live up a more expansive definition of democracy? In gauging this, it might be helpful to draw a few loose analogies from the dictatorial practices listed above.

First, let’s equate the place of work to a country and the managers as the “powers that be.”

Secondly, let’s equate any evidence of harassment prior to the secret ballot as analogous to dictators harassing oppositionists.

Thirdly, let’s equate the monopolization of the media by a political regime as similar to a monopolization of the campaign environment in the lead-up to the secret ballot election.

Finally, let’s equate any evidence of firing those that advocate a “yes” vote to unionize as similar to these regimes disenfranchising would be opposition supporters.

Since I’ve already established that countries which practice such things are not democratic, then it is only fair to say that similar practices in the workplace can also not be democratic.

The evidence suggests quite convincingly that the process which accompanies the vote on whether or not to unionize would make Robert Mugabe proud. A widely cited paper published by the Center for Economic and Policy Research (http://www.cepr.net/) found that illegal firings occurred in one fourth of all union representation elections in the 2000s. This rate was around 16 percent during the 1990s. A House of Representative report cites that number to be around 1 percent in the 1970s. The Center’s senior economist, John Schmitt, cites that "Aggressive actions by employers -- often including illegal firings -- have significantly undermined the ability of U.S. workers to unionize their workplaces," Separate data from the AFL-CIO supports the CEPR’s research.

The pre-election campaign environments remind me of the election campaigns dominated by the political regimes that I’ve spent quite a few years studying. Business managers have a near exclusive monopoly on the dissemination of information and rallying in the weeks leading up to the secret ballot. Wal-mart has been widely known to use this tactic to scare workers away from unionizing. At the same time, Union activists have almost no ability to engage in dissemination campaigns.

So, in light of this evidence, what is the meaning behind all of the talk about the proposed card check as a threat to the democratic rights of the workers? Democracy is more than just an election. It encompasses a process of debate free from harassment and intimidation. It seems to me that card check might actually go a long way toward improving the effective rights of workers to a democratic election.

Re: Garrett Perdue, economic developer?

calebw — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:50:03 -0400

Garrett seems to have a finger in a lot on of money making business'

Re: Study: More unions mean more money

Modeen_Gunch — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 20:47:07 -0400

I'm sorry, but I must be living in the Twilight Zone and Brother Lubke and Brother Harrell must be from another planet. I thought I read that there was a budget shortfall of astronomical proportions in North Carolina or was that an alien giving the SOS speach last evening. State employees will NOT receive a salary increase this year and will probably be rewarded with furloughs as noted by the Speaker and the Minority Leader along with bearing the burden of a Health Care Plan that is bust through no fault of their own.
A number of elected members of the General Assembly now owe the unions for their favorable campaign contributions and will repay them with their vote for "Card Check". State Employees are nothing but pawns in the game of allowing Unions to move into North Carolina. All of you are correct when you say that the only winner in this game is the Union and they want a return on the millions of dollars they have spent on their personal legislators.
The sad irony of this article is that people will believe this garbage and then buy their next lottery ticket!

Re: Study: More unions mean more money

tangoz — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 18:53:55 -0400

A economist testified before Congress that the gains unions would make through the anti-secret ballot initiative would result in a overall increase in national unemployment by 1 to 1.5%.

Re: Study: More unions mean more money

nc4me — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:20:47 -0400

lgrafstein - we're obviously coming from two different world views. But I'll give it a shot.

I don't think CEO pay should be regulated either. I believe market forces should determine everyone's pay. Government interference in markets rarely produces the desired outcome - and if does the consequences are much greater.

No doubt there are a few bad apple's in the "CEO basket". But the current situation, I would argue, has as much to do with Fannie and Freddie as anything. In that case, government interference in upset the market forces. People were being approved for loans they couldn't afford. We could spend a few days discussing this I'm sure.

The reality (IMHO) is there is a cost or trade off for everything. If you mandate "middle class" pay increases - that money has to come from somewhere. You would probably argue take it from the CEO? What's fair about that? Take away the CEO's incentive and you take away his skills from the market. Who then will rely on to create jobs in this country. Not everyone has the skill set to be an executive.

That's about all the time I have for a response right now. I understand your perspective - I hope I've made mine more clear.

Re: Study: More unions mean more money

MissV — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:06:09 -0400

This argument makes about as much sense as Ty Harrell and me buying a tanning bed.

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