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An EFCA Revival?

There are a couple interesting stories from the past week where supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act make it known that the legislation will not go down without a fight.

In commemorating the 75th anniversary of the passage of the National Labor Relations Act, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis used the moment to essentially reinforce the administration’s belief that unions strengthen the economy, while once again committing their support for the Employee Free Choice Act.

Here is what she said about EFCA:

In order to rebuild the middle class today, we need to level the playing field for all working people and update our labor laws to fit the 21st century workplace. That's why the President and I support the Employee Free Choice Act - which would update the NLRA so workers can form unions if they choose to without fear or pressure.

I suppose she figures her audience at the Huffington Post knows what EFCA is but she declines to say what it does or how it does it. She made the argument about “leveling the playing field” many times in the column, but never mentioned anything about secret ballots, card check, etc. which has been the strategy of supporters for some time.

And in a Wall Street Journal article from earlier this morning they talked about the possibility that Democrats will try to pass major, often controversial legislation, during the lame duck session of Congress. One of those bills that continues to get brought up is EFCA. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) is in favor of that, and in the House one Democrat spoke frankly about the possibility. When it comes to EFCA, “the lame duck would be the last chance, quite honestly, for the foreseeable future,” noted Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ).

Looking At The New Union Election Statistics

About a week ago, the Bureau of Labor Statics released the latest numbers on union elections, along with a 13 year trend. Here are the numbers for 2009: there were 1,304 elections for union representation held with the union winning 864 of them. That represents a 66.3 percent win total, the highest winning percentage since World War II probably- and slightly higher than last years 64.7 percent.

It appears that that is the new labor strategy. Don’t bother holding the election unless it looks pretty evident the union will win. Looking back over the past 13 years, the union winning percentage has increased steadily from 50.8 percent in 1997 to where it is today. While that may make for good PR, it has not done much to increase union numbers.

In 1997, there were a total of 3,261 elections held- the union won about half- with a little more than 90,000 employees joining the union (out of about 224,000 who cast ballots). In the past year, just 44,033 new employees were involved in petitions won by the union- down about 50 percent from 13 years ago. At the same time, only 69,832 employees were even eligible to vote- down a remarkable 70 percent from 1997.