Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be created in renewable energy manufacturing. Will these employment opportunities be "high-road," decent-paying union jobs, or will employers take the "low road"--tapping into the desperation of unemployed workers who have already seen too much pain?" The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers is not giving up on bringing organized labor's opportunities to workers in the sector, despite a recent setback.

There's more...

Update [2007-3-1 16:21:47 by Nancy Scola]: H.R. 800 just passed the House, 241-185.

Ezra's absolutely right. And the end of the day, the House vote on the Employee Free Choice Act comes down to simply, which side are you on?

It's a bit uncomfortable for me to frame things as "you're either with us or against us." But the more you dive into this fight, the more it's perfectly clear that those are the real terms of this debate. Opponents of card check -- the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers -- have been arguing for months that their opposition is based in the American worker's sacred right to a secret ballot. Card check means that the scary, sweat-inducing, union bosses will intimidate workers into doing something they don't want to do. The strength of an argument like that is that, on its face, it makes some sense. It's emotionally appealing. And you can send around funny cartoons to make your point:

But here's where you have to vigorously shake your head clear, and remember that today's debate on Capitol Hill over card check just isn't about those things. History and recent events leave no doubt that there are those among us who really don't like unions. There are national interests committed to ripping the heart out of the labor movement. They want, in the words of Grover Norquist, "to crush labor as a political entity" and eliminate unions. That's all that this debate is about. That's it. There are anti-union interest groups, union-busting law firms, there's an industry in this country of trying to cut the legs out from the labor movement. It's an undeniable part of the American political landscape. It has been as long as there have been unions.

There's more...

Almost one-in-five union organizers or activists can expect to be fired as a result of their activities in a union election campaign. This revelation came last week in a report (pdf) by The Center for Economic Policy and Research.

"Aggressive actions by employers -- often including illegal firings -- have significantly undermined the ability of U.S. workers to unionize their workplaces," said John Schmitt, CEPR senior economist and lead author of the paper. "With the legal penalties for such actions being so slight, employers can break the law to head-off organizing efforts and face almost no real repercussions."

There's more...