Have you heard of the Employee Free Choice Act?

There are pros and cons to this potential law- read up on it here.

While not receiving the same media attention as the sub-prime mortgage crisis, the misleadingly named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is sure to be a hot-button issue in the 2008 election, and threatens to have just as big an affect on this country’s economic well-being. The EFCA may bring about the most drastic overhaul of private sector labor relations since the passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935. Ironically, if passed, the EFCA would severely restrict employees’ free choice when it comes to workplace unionization campaigns.

The EFCA was first introduced in 2003, and passed in the House of Representatives last year, before being blocked in the Senate. However, the bill may be reintroduced should the Democrats solidify control of the Senate and gain control of the White House, since Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has pledged to support the EFCA.

The Act would significantly alter current private sector labor laws in several ways. First and foremost, the EFCA would allow “card-check” certification of unions, meaning that in order for the union to become the bargaining representative, it only needs a majority of workers to sign authorization cards.

In a card-check procedure, an employer views union authorization cards presented by the union and determines whether the union has gathered cards from a majority of employees. If the union has received a majority of employee support, the employer can recognize the union as the employees’ exclusive collective bargaining representative. This procedure eliminates a secret-ballot election, which allows the employees to educate themselves regarding the benefits and downsides of union representation.

What’s your opinion of this? Should labor unions be allowed to represent employees without a secret ballot vote? Is getting enough cards signed good enough?

Pro EFCA sites:
AFLCIO
Employee Free Choice Act

Against EFCA info:
Heritage Foundation
Coalition for a Democratic Workplace

I have some thoughts about performance evaluations. Annual evals should be tools for improvement. Not only should our past performance be measured, our future goals should be laid out as well. Managers and leaders, real ones anyway, know this. To often, in the nursing facility, evals are not important; they are dreaded, thrown out and disregarded and by many. We often feel under the gun and undervalued when we read our evals. Its one reason so many of us leave this work.

Read the rest of this entry »

This story really speaks to the problems CNA’s face when deciding to do this work for a career. A New York City nursing home owner went cheap, stopped paying it’s share of employee worker comp premiums and then stopped offering health insurance as a benefit. The worker comp portion of this is easy- it’s required by law. But not the other insurance. As a result, the aides went on strike back in February. It’s been a long haul for them.

After six months on strike, 220 workers at one of the largest nursing homes in the Bronx were feeling relieved, delighted but still somewhat angry when they began returning to work on Thursday morning.

The employees of the Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation and Care Center returned to work largely because a federal judge issued an injunction last week ordering the nursing home to resume paying the workers’ health insurance premiums. The home’s decision to stop paying those premiums caused the workers to walk out on Feb. 20.

They pay us dirt wages, and expect us to be loyal? We can’t afford to work as CNA’s. My question on this: Do the workers, the aides and others, have insurance now or did their union agree to forgo it in return for jobs? I bet they still don’t have health insurance.