Employee Free Choice Act

Throughout the 2008 campaign, the “card-check” provision of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was a political lightning rod. Business groups pilloried the proposal as an attack on workers’ rights, while organized labor lobbied ferociously for the measure, which would allow workers to unionize when more than half have signed cards indicating support for collective bargaining. When Democratic leaders quietly decided to drop the measure from EFCA last month — without so much as a vote — it came as something of a slap in the face for labor.

This week Minnesota’s members of Congress went back to work after the July 4 break, except for Sen. Al Franken who was showing up — finally — for the first time. Rep. Keith Ellison put forward a credit reform bill, Rep. Betty McCollum announced her plan to expand the Peace Corps, and Republicans criticized the Democrats’ energy and stimulus policies. Here’s how the week shook down…

Wal-Mart is threatening to fire pro-union workers at its store in the Midway neighborhood of St. Paul, according to a complaint filed today with the National Labor Relations Board. The charges, filed by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789, allege that starting on June 11 corporate representatives began telling employees that they could easily acquire a list of union backers and that those people would lose their jobs.

After years of eschewing labor-organizing drives at the world’s largest company, the United Food and Commercial Workers has vowed that capitulation to Wal-Mart is over. The union has started organizing campaigns in 17 states, including Minnesota, targeting more than 100 stores. The impetus for the organizing drive: the new administration in the White House and the possibility of passing the Employee Free Choice Act.

Did bailout money end up boosting Norm Coleman’s senatorial campaign? Hard to say, but damning new evidence unearthed by Huffington Post suggests that the former U.S. senator was heavily promoted by corporate opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act, including bailout recipient Bank of America Corp. On Oct. 17, three days after the financial institution [...]

Democrat Ashwin Madia and Republican Erik Paulsen squared off for the first time yesterday in a debate at the General Mills headquarters. The UpTake has posted video of the entire discussion, which also included Independence Party candidate David Dillon. The generally amicable debate sparked the most heat over the Employee Free Choice Act, which would [...]