The hotly debated card-check provisions in the Employee Free
Choice Act (EFCA) appear to be in limbo after conflicting reports
in recent days about their inclusion. A New York Times
article late last week reported that a small group of six
Democratic senators, who have been working on a compromise to
salvage EFCA, had agreed that the alternative would not include the
current bill's card check provisions. However, an item in
today's BNA Daily Labor Report seems to refute that
report, saying that union representatives are denying there is an
agreement and that the office of Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the
bill's sponsor, is not confirming "anything."
As currently drafted, EFCA's card-check provisions mandate
employers recognize a union if the union is able to get more than
50 percent of an employer's employees to sign authorization
cards, thereby eliminating the traditional secret-ballot elections
normally used in the labor organizing process. This is not a
surprising
