Is the Employee Free Choice Act the Magic Key to Labor Revival?
Many union leaders are still hoping that Congress will approve the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which will make it a lot easier to recruit unorganized workers into unions. But very few unorganized workers have responded to the AFL-CIO campaign, which is run exclusively by men and women who are already in unions. The elimination of card check, from the EFCA bill takes away its core value (where a majority of workers can join a union by signing authorization cards), and provides only a minimum advantage to organizers. It is true that millions of workers are afraid to join unions because of fear they risk their bosss anger and may be fired. But there may be millions of others who dont want to join the AFL-CIO, because of its publicized undemocratic features and self-serving leadership. * * * * * If unions hope to increase their membership, they will have to do two things that do not depend on more funding: First, they will have to re-examine their appeal to various unorganized constit
