Lots of stuff on EFCA on the internet, but much of it strikes me as hysterical propaganda. When you wage a high school, student council campaign to support a cause — or when you reduce a complex idea to a hashtag — you lose the ability to have a thoughtful and meaningful discussion.
Blame SHRM. Blame Congress. Blame labor and management for not coming up with a solution several months ago. Blame our short-attention spans. I don’t care, anymore. The labor force is changing, and I think that the EFCA debate is mired in the politics of an old century and an old way of thinking. The real battles — how we define the nature of work, how we measure productivity, how we pay people for their knowledge and ideas — are the coming debates of the 21st century.
I’m over EFCA and reactionary-style lobbying. Maybe you should be, too.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Here’s another blogger with a similar take on the EFCA issue: http://creativechaosconsultant.blogspot.com/2009/03/efca-if-i-didnt-talk-about-it-you.html
Dude, I get to spend my Thursday sequestered in a session about the EFCA. Please dear God make it o.k. to drink at work!
@Victorio Thanks!
@HRPuf How fun for you. Maybe you can also get invited to a COBRA meeting, too!
COBRA meets EFCA in a steel-cage death-match for the world heavyweight over-analyzed statute crown, at the Civic Center this Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY! BE THERE!
The powers where I work are asking me when am I going to “train” the employees on union-avoidance due to EFCA. Whatever. I’m in no hurry to comply with that stupid request. I am, however, making sure our employees know that they can file greivances, speak directly to the president, and just overall communicate with management anytime, anywhere!
Isn’t this better than “union-avoidance” training??
@kentropic That would be the most boring match ever.
@teresa Exactly. Thank you.
I agree, trying to find any non-biased info is impossible.
Whether unionization is positive for business, the workforce, or the economy is a conversation best left to someone in a field other than mine.As an I/O Psychologist my interest lies in organizational success through the well-being of employees.
If no other good comes from EFCA, at least it is forcing companies to have an important conversation. In searching for ways to combat unionization, employers are realizing they need engaged employees
I am going into the union avoidance – or maybe the union organizing consulting business….I know where the work is for the next 24 months!!!
Either way there will be plenty of consulting work and $ available. What a great transition position out of regular HR.
M
My company recently hosted a webinar on EFCA. We did our best to remain neutral on the issue. In my opinion, the biggest value for the participants the fact that a Labor Relations attorney answered just about every question they posed (for free!).
If anyone is interested, I have reproduced the EFCA Question and Answer session on my blog: http://jungleblog.foresightint.com/tag/employee-free-choice-act/
Sorry… not sure how to add hyperlinks yet.
dear laurie,
do you really believe that people have reduced the EFCA issue and all that goes with it to a hashtag? come on. give people more credit than that. the hashtag is a way to track a small piece of the conversation in the twitterverse, which is tiny in comparison to the grand scheme of things.
if you step outside of the blogosphere and world of social media we operate in, there’s sooo much more going on to foster conversation and discussions on the merits/pitfalls/alternatives to EFCA as well as efforts to educate HR and business pros on the matter.
if you’re over EFCA though… i guess the conversation will just continue without you whether it’s in social media channels, or elsewhere.
all my best,
JLee
@JLee I’m not done with you, but I’m done with some of the anti-union and pro-union nonsense I’m seeing online. I just feel like many HR pros are fighting the battles of the 60s and 70s. I come from a union family — much like Frank Roche — and I have steelworkers and police officers and teachers in my family. This is a very real conversation for me. I don’t want the world to be unionized, but I want safe and fair work places. Honestly, I just refuse to take part in a conversation with an end result that’s already predetermined. It’s possible to be both pro-worker and pro-business. I like money and employees. I like profit and safety. Maybe I’m weird.
@guajardoforesight Thanks!
@You will make a mint!
@Michael Union vulnerability audits? Two steps forward, one step back IMHO.
Laurie – first time leaving a comment, I just stumbled across your blog a few weeks ago and have been checking it frequently. You rock as I agree with many of your comments about the HR world.
As for the EFCA, unions are businesses and need members to keep going. None of the union leadership want to go back to doing regular jobs and they want to protect what they have – just look at unionfacts.com.
What concerns me with the EFCA is to circumvent the voting part of the NLRA since that is something that goes beyond the world of labor law – it is a democratic principle. However, with that said, the time is ripe for this debate. The US has been fat dumb and happy for over 20 years since the last big unemployment problem of the early 80’s and when the spread of the “haves” and “have nots” reaches a point of critical mass, people want to organize. One of the basis roles of a union is to provide employees a voice. To many of the corp HR types are nothing but puppets that talk out of both sides of their mouth without having the balls to act with integrity. If you stand up to your “business partners” then you are not a team player, blah, blah, blah, etc.
Unfortunately, companies have been jerking people around for the last few years since the early 2000s with wage freezes, meager raises, “right sizing”, etc. and it is just now getting attention because the situation is affecting the entire spectrum of the workforce. But the funny thing is that when times get tough, all companies get more cut throat about protecting what they have (like the unions) and that includes those at the top that make decisions to justify their existence. Execs play armchair HR professionals without taking any pain themselves. Strategic HR and everything that is associated with it is the first thing put on hold – all of a sudden HR becomes expendable. The old school tactic of keeping the chaos going appears since if things are screwed up, the top must be needed to keep the boat upright. Never mind needing any people to row.
If the EFCA forces management to walk the walk, instead of just talking the talk, then I am all for it. If it does past, I expect ULP filings to increase dramatically as management starts to pee all over themselves.
The best organizer is a poor supervisor.
Unions and management have a record of cheating and intimidating in some organizing efforts and votes. There are resonable compromises but we won
@Logan Corporate America is not democratic, so I don’t buy the argument that the secret ballot is a right. That being said, your comment has interesting points — especially about the role of strategic HR, walking the walk, etc. I’m still bored by this discussion, though — and now that Specter has expressed his feelings, I think we’ll get some kind of compromise.
@Old Guy It’s always about money, isn’t it? There is no money in common sense.
For those of us who grew up in the Watergate era (I know ancient history), we were trained to “follow the money.” Common sense isn’t common.