| COLUMNS by Ray St. Louis, a sometimes-humorous newspaper columnist |
| I have been writing a social and political commentary column for the High Springs Herald, a North Central Florida weekly, under the heading "Between the Lines" since the spring of 1994. Most of the columns included on this page were published by the Herald although a couple appeared in other newspapers. Several of the archived columns won awards from the Florida Press Association and are identified as such. Dates given refer to the day of writing rather than the day of publication. More columns, especially from the early years, will be added to the archive as soon as they can be transcribed from incompatible formats. |
| 3/20/09 BETWEEN THE LINES Let me tell you about the Employee Free Choice Act. All right, I can see that you are yawning. The name of the bill currently up for consideration in Congress does that to me too. It’s a snooze-inducer. If only the bill had been named something a bit more edgy, something like the "Stop Corporate Fatcats’ Efforts to Bust Unions and Destroy the Middle Class Act", I have a feeling it would be a lot easier to get folks stirred up. But it wasn’t; and it isn’t. Which is too bad because the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is probably the most important piece of legislation in terms of improving ordinary people’s lives and rescuing the middle class that has come down the pike in a long time. Perhaps it would help get you riled up if I told you some of the forces arrayed against EFCA. Plus, I’ll throw in what I know about how much money these entities are spending and where that money comes from. 1. The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace; anti-EFCA budget approximately $30 million; main sources of funding: U. S. Chamber of Commerce, Associated Builders and Contractors, and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (dominated by Wal-Mart). 2. Workforce Fairness Institute; formed by corporate lobbyists specifically to fight EFCA; budget $10 million; the WFI refuses to disclose its funding sources. 3. Alliance for Worker Freedom; union busting arm of Americans for Tax Reform; primary financial backer is Grover Norquist; budget unknown. There are many more, all of them with seemingly innocuous names – Americans for Job Security, the Employee Freedom Action Committee. They are all front groups for corporate funded efforts to defeat EFCA and suppress other pro-union endeavors. Are you starting to feel riled up yet? All told, business groups have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the anti-EFCA lobbying and misinformation campaign, employing all the usual scare tactic rhetoric. According to the business front groups, EFCA will cost jobs, bankrupt companies, bring on socialism, incite class warfare, and cause the end of civilization as we know it. What is it about EFCA that scares them out of their wits? They’re all afraid that, once workers across the nation have an honest-to-goodness free choice whether or not to unionize, many will choose to do so thereby reversing the decades-long decline in union membership. So they spread lies. The number one lie, distortion, misrepresentation of EFCA that the business groups have been promulgating is the claim the law denies workers the right to a secret ballot in workplace union elections. This is false. EFCA does exactly what the name says it does – it gives workers a choice. They can choose the secret ballot method or they can choose the simpler card check method. But it is their choice, not the employer’s. Corporate employers love drawn-out secret ballot union elections because they get more time to create logistical impediments and manipulate the results. They have well-planned corporate strategies to stifle these elections, and well-paid union-busting experts to implement these strategies. Wal-Mart is the undisputed champion in this regard. Reports of employee intimidation, coercion, propagandizing and firing are widespread. Wal-Mart has gone so far as to close store departments or even entire stores to bust union activity. During the 2008 election campaign, Wal-Mart’s human-resource managers were required to hold meetings wherein employees were told that voting for pro-EFCA Democratic candidates could negatively affect their job status. In other words, they told employees how to vote. Are you getting riled up yet? Okay, then try this one on for size. Now that EFCA has been officially introduced into both houses of Congress, more of the big names in the tottering American economic juggernaut are lining up with the anti-EFCA forces. That would include Citigroup. You know, the parent company of Citibank, which has received $50 billion in federal bailout funds. The day after EFCA was introduced in Congress, Citigroup first devalued Wal-Mart stock (presumably to bring home their point that EFCA was bad for business), then held an anti-EFCA “informational” conference call. That’s right, Citigroup, kept afloat with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars, is getting involved in the campaign to kill legislation that could greatly improve the lives of the people who forked over the money. That would be us, being played as suckers once again. Are you riled up yet? |
| ARCHIVE * award winner |