Posts tagged Tim Scott
Why Congress Should Follow Tennessee’s Lead on Labor Reform
April 26, 2023 // And now, federal legislation aims to give them a similar guarantee. The Employee Rights Act, introduced by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Rep. Rick Allen (R-Ga.), envisions secret-ballot elections becoming the norm for almost all private-sector employees, in all states. It also secures workers’ privacy, giving them a choice about what information is shared with a union. For example, instead of workers having all their personal information—their cell phone number, their home address, and personal email—handed over to the union, workers can select a single piece of information to share. The legislation also modernizes outdated labor laws. With more than one-third of Americans now identifying as independent workers, this reform is sorely needed. The Employee Rights Act protects entrepreneurs by standardizing the federal definition of independent workers. This safeguards workers from being treated as employees for the purpose of unionization.
Employee Rights Act Is Back
April 25, 2023 //
What is the Employee Rights Act, and how would it advance worker freedom?
April 21, 2023 // Unlike the PRO Act – which, imbued with a dated and rigid workplace vision that is increasingly displacing American workers – the ERA would empower workers to seize more opportunity and take greater control of their futures.
The Undercover Organizers Behind America’s Union Wins
April 5, 2023 // The practice of joining a workplace with the secret aim of organizing it is called “salting.” Westlake was addressing recruits at the Inside Organizer School, a workshop held a couple times a year by a loose confederation of labor organizers. At these meetups, experienced activists train other attendees in the art of going undercover. Speakers lecture and lead discussions on how to pass employer screenings, forge relationships with co-workers and process the complicated feelings that can accompany a double life. Most salts are volunteers, not paid union officials, but unions sometimes fund their housing or, later, tap them for full-time jobs. Workers United, the Service Employees International Union affiliate that’s home to the new Starbucks union, hired Westlake as an organizer around the time the coffee chain fired him last fall.
Secret ballot vital in union elections
February 17, 2023 // Consider one example from the public sector. In 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled in Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees that public employees can’t be forced to join unions or pay union dues. The Commonwealth responded by passing legislation that allows public employee unions to agree to different terms for union members and non-members, giving unions the sole right to negotiate lesser pay and reduced benefits on behalf of the non-members. The law also promotes tried and true intimidation tactics by giving unions access to employees’ personal information, including home addresses; work, home, and personal cellphone numbers; along with work and personal email addresses. Anyone in Massachusetts public policy circles knows the Commonwealth’s unions aren’t interested in using that information to augment their holiday card lists.
Unions want it to be ‘game over’ for the secret ballot
January 17, 2023 // The Employee Rights Act is a worker-centric bill that will make sure people considering unionization are able to do so without the intimidation and coercion associated with card check organizing. If the CWA is offering good value for potential members, it should not be afraid of a private vote.
Op-ed: Worker freedom and choice are still under attack
August 23, 2022 // In one dispute that reached the NLRB , an employee was told if she did not sign an authorization card, “the union would come and get her children and it would also slash her car tires.” In a 2012 United Auto Workers union drive in Chattanooga, Tennessee, workers claimed organizers said that signing cards would only indicate their interest in the union. But this was not true: Signing the card meant they authorized the union to represent them. Unions prefer the card check approach because it allows them to bypass the protections of a secret ballot election and helps them organize more dues-paying members. If an organizer threatens a worker to sign a card, the worker may comply just to get the organizer to go away.
When Unions Harm Workers’ Ability to Get Raises
June 13, 2022 // Starbucks no longer has the right to raise unilaterally the compensation for employees for those stores that have opted for unionization. By law, Starbucks can’t do that, and unions like it that way so that they can take credit for workers’ gains. This is not solely the union’s fault. It is baked into the outdated one-size-fits-all model of collective bargaining. This model is over a century old and was created for another time and workforce. Thankfully, the Employee Rights Act , sponsored by Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA), would address at least one of these issues. The ERA would allow unionized employers to give their employees raises without having to go through a union. Joe Thompson
Give Pro-Life Union Members a Choice, Organized labor backs Planned Parenthood. Not all workers do.
May 12, 2022 // While organized labor sends 90% of its political donations to Democrats, roughly 40% of voters in union households favor Republicans. Members can choose out of supporting their union’s political-action committees, however their dues are nonetheless used to fund concern campaigns, lobbying and advocacy organizations that align with the union leaders’ left-of-center values.
ARE PRIVATE SECTOR UNIONS PASSÉ?
May 5, 2022 // Union membership is way down, and their collective future is not rosy.