Happy Hour Open Thread: SEIU Hits Chamber Over Bailout Cash
* A major union has just opened up an interesting new front in the bitter war over the Employee Free Choice Act, with SEIU calling on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to stop using taxpayer bailout cash to fund its ad campaign attacking the measure.
SEIU is blasting the Chamber, a determined EFCA foe, for seemingly saying on its blog that it’s still taking membership dues money from companies that have received government bailout cash.
SEIU is demanding that the Chamber not spend any of the bailout cash on ads attacking EFCA, on the grounds that it constitutes a political use of taxpaper dollars. “The Chamber of Commerce must stop accepting taxpayer funds to lobby against taxpayer interests,” SEIU says. The Chamber says it’s not spending bailout money on the ads, though it hasn’t said it isn’t taking dues from companies getting bailout cash.
* John Cole wants us all to stop pretending that the pirate standoff Obama just helped resolve was akin to Kennedy’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
* But the Pentagon confirms that Obama did authorize the use of force.
* Josh Orton sees an emerging pattern in the White House’s refusal to say whether it will support legislation nixing use of state secrets privilege.
* Marc Ambinder levels harsh criticism:
Make no mistake: Obama will be rolling back the spirit, if not the fact, of a campaign promise by opposing this bill.
* Wavering Dem Senator Blanche Lincoln is open to a compromise on EFCA.
* Which isn’t surprising, since she’s under major and unrelenting pressure from both sides. I’d say a lot of Senators would be very happy indeed if a compromise somehow did fall from the Heavens.
* ABC News fact-checks Obama’s claim about the 2000th stimulus project.
* Oliver Willis makes a good point that I’d missed about that Gallup poll showing overwhelming confidence in Obama on the economy among independents.
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Here’s a compromise that would be good for Labor: Water down the card-check stuff but keep the binding-arbitration provisions.
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EFCA does effectively eliminate the secret ballot for unionization. That’s a talking point that’s hard to beat. I’m sure there are other ways to make the playing field more level between union organizers and hostile management.
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I’ve often thought that there could be a compromise along these lines … no mandated secret ballot if the workers are informed in some official way of what all their options are…
Who da fizuck is running the SEIU messaging campaign??!! Thats about the dumbest move ever. Nobody is going to turn against the Chamber because they are using bailout funds in the most tangential way to attack EFCA. Jeebus man somebody tell them to email me so I can show them how to stunt!
“Fringe of the fringe”? Fringe, squared? Fringe to the nth exponential?
jzap?
It doesn’t completely eliminate it, but I get your point.
My question is more fundamental: why have it in the first place?
Speaking of Chambers on this open thread…
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It’s a sign of the times that the passing of porn star Marilyn Chambers was given a spot on the CBS radio network’s hourly broadcast. Moreover, it was aired before the three-minute-mark commercial break, not at the end where obits usually go.
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I wouldn’t say that ABC fact-checks anything so much as raises doubt by repeating, “we don’t really know” a bunch of times.
I thought John Cole’s post on the pirate insanity the best in town.
Why have a secret ballot in the first place? (Not sure if I’ve got your question in the right context.)
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The theory is that a secret ballot allows employees to register their preference without pressure from union organizers and peers or from management. That resonates with everyone’s notion of fairness. In practice, though, management coercion has often carried the day.
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W/r/t EFCA specifically, the secret-ballot stuff is a big talking point. That’s why proponents are so quick to point out that EFCA does not eliminate it. That’s true, but what they don’t say is that EFCA makes it hugely difficult for either management or individual employees to force a secret ballot.
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I think there’s room for labor to give some ground on this while still reducing management’s coercive leverage in unionizing elections. If that’s what it takes to get binding arbitration, it’ll still be a big win.
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Meizurray the Keizay?
jzap
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They updated the filter to catch my ph rendition of the word that rhymes with buck so I had to try something new. But seriously their messaging sucks balls. Its like they are as tone deaf as the average republicans. Right now people are angry at big govt and big business and the people who are getting most of the love are the little guy. The unions have the ability to grab that mantle as the little guy and run with it but instead they keep coming with teh stupid like attacking the Chamber for getting stimulus funds. How silly. You know who are big time union members? Cops….Firefighters….Nurses….garbage workers….People who have thankless jobs but who we count on everyday. But they aren’t even leveraging that at all. Hell I could come up with 3 lines of attack in less than an hour that would be better than their attack on the Chamber (but thats not saying much)
SGW: Ah. You meant to say Who the phuсk because the PC filter would have clobbered Who the fuсk, right?
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You might want to copy and paste those two words somewhere you can copy and repaste them back into one of your comments. Oh, the joys of Unicode!
I’m sure some of you have seen the polling up at Kos and how it clarifies, rather starkly, the political influence of the south on the contemporary conservative movement and the GOP…
http://www.dailykos.com/statepoll/2009/4/9/US/284
And, as usual, Yglesias does bright commentary… http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/04/conservative_anti_european_rhetoric_reflects_distinctive_southern_attitudes.php
Will Jonah Goldberg apologize to Newt?
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=M2E4NDNjMzM4NjgxY2RlZDlhOWU1OGZiN2NiMmNlZjQ=
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_041309/content/01125106.guest.html
BREAKING NEWS in e-mail from UpTake:
PDF of the decision is here: http://is.gd/sfuX
jzap
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Thats AWESOME. They ruled Franken should get the certificate of election too. I don’t know if thats standard even when there will likely be an appeal but they went all in on Coleman from what I read. Basically dismissing most of his case as being unfounded.
This is a test
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fuсk,
jzap you are teh man
Jonah Goldberg ran afoul of Rush Limbaugh by saying a very minimally complimentary thing about Obama’s role in the rescue of Captain Phillips. And you can imagine what happened next.
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http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_041309/content/01125106.guest.html
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