EFCA and Canada

This Forbes.com piece does a good job of pointing out the differences between Canadian labor laws and ours. Canada's federal labor law applies to federal employees and certain national industries (i.e. banking) - about 10% of the workforce. Canada leaves the regulation of the other 90% to her provincial governments. In 1975, all of them used something like the original EFCA's card check provisions, but today 6 of the Canada's 10 provinces provide for secret ballot elections. We have previously written about Canadian labor law here and here.

President Supports EFCA

President Barrack Obama in a speech given at the AFL-CIO convention, proclaimed "I stand behind the Employee Free Choice Act – because if a majority of workers want a union, they should get a union."

(sigh) Before a union can gain the right to represent workers it must have demonstrable support from a majority of workers. This is so because the union becomes the representative of not only those wanting it but also the non-consenting employees who do not. The card signing portion of EFCA is strictly about what method is permitted to establish majority status. The unions want a one-sided process where they can surreptitiously convince employees to "support" the union often using heavy-handed and abusive tactics to do so. The process is fraught with concern as to whether majority status is real or coerced. We have previously posted on this problem. More after the jump.