A key vote for business

The current law protects the RIGHTS of WORKERS by requiring a secret ballot.

The union thugs are trying to TAKE AWAY that right so they can threaten and intimidate workers into forming unions that the workers don't want.

Republicans are not for workers and the chamber of commerce is not for small business. They are both shills for big business. Follow the money.
Republicans have the American people fooled into thinking they are one of them. What fools we have been.

The current law protects the RIGHTS of WORKERS by requiring a secret ballot.

The union thugs are trying to TAKE AWAY that right so they can threaten and intimidate workers into forming unions that the workers don't want.

Pure poppycock, Mr. Specter. You continue the business lie that the bill obviates the secret ballot. No, this is a snow job by the Republican minority that somehow controls all things in Washington by requiring a super-majority on every single piece of legislation. Who made up this rule and why do the Dems continue to allow this obstructionism? The Republican party is indeed the party of NO and the party of the rich corporations. We hope soon that the Republican party will be so small that we can drown it in the bathtub.

After seeing the debacle the unions created in the automobile industry they need to be disbanded. They are an entity that has outlived their use. The government under the Messiah will make them irrelevant anyway He wants to dictate everything.

Excellent !

This is just outright irresponsible. EFCA doesn't block or ban secret ballots, it merely introduces an alternative method to form unions. Employees may still use secret ballots if they choose to do so.

The talking point that EFCA stops employees from using secret ballots is just an outright lie designed to frighten the uninformed so that these execs don't have to tell the truth and say, "This law would cause more unions to be formed, and we are anti-union."

The "secret ballot," Specter supports is that of the two wolves and one sheep deciding on what to have for dinner.

This bill is a joke, and supporting it is a joke, and I'm glad I gave up my subscription to this rag of a newspaper, since they support it as well.

When 5 guys start showing up on our doorsteps to "convince" us to sign up for a union, I'll thank Obama, Congress, and this trash of a newspaper.

Your lead off sentence indicates your bias when you use the provocative "big business" that we have all heard used to describe the "big, bad guys".
That said, ALL businesses got an ally with Sen. Specter's change in support. Small businesses can least afford the extra costs associated with dealing with NLRB and another organization (the union) when competing for business. And, we need virtually every business to be successful today for jobs.
A fair, secret ballot is what everyone is entitled to, not the carnival that this bill would have created.

Your lead off sentence indicates your bias when you use the provocative "big business" that we have all heard used to describe the "big, bad guys".
That said, ALL businesses got an ally with Sen. Specter's change in support. Small businesses can least afford the extra costs associated with dealing with NLRB and another organization (the union) when competing for business. And, we need virtually every business to be successful today for jobs.
A fair, secret ballot is what everyone is entitled to, not the carnival that this bill would have created.

Poor Victor, he is such a victim, he just wants equal OUTCOME instead of equal OPPORTUNITY. Our constitution states "pursuit of Happiness" not guarnteed, get your own money the way we do, EARN IT!

Thank goodness that someone in Congress has some sense. Taking away the secret ballot is how the Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany controlled their unions.

I think it will be a sad day when Unions are no longer an effective tool for workers rights, workers safety and to keep the heads of large manufacturing bases form keeping all the wealth. The man power should be compensated for keeping the "Rich - Rich" and enabling future growth for fair wages and an ever growing need to better ourselves and our families. Please don't act hastely and take away the rights of working class families and our fight for fair wages and safe manufacturing.

CORRECTION: The current law protects the EMPLOYERS by allowing the company to demand that the workers use a secret ballot. Then they intimidate the workers into making the decision they like best.
The unions are trying to GIVE THE RIGHT TO FORM A UNION to the WORKERS. The workers can choose to use a secret ballot if they wish, this does not eliminate that option.
SPECTER WAS BOUGHT!

UNION (Underperforming Nagging Inempt Ogranisation Nonsense) I hate unions. They are made for Lazy people. Since the formation of a union in our company we have go Bankrupt. Yea, we realy need overpaid under performing employees in this country. What a bunch of crock.

Pretty amazing that the Democarts want to eliminate the secret ballot which is the conerstone of the democracy. What happens next? do we eliminate secret ballots for the presidency?

Imagine if campainging was outlawed for public elections, much like the "camapinging" that goes on during union elections, from both sides. Does anyone really believe that Obama would be elected president if he hadn't spent $675 million on advertising and campaigning. Might as well send all our jobs to China if this bill becomes law!

Big Business? Why does the Boston Globe have to editorialize? Sen. Specter specifically referenced small business in his quote and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce represents businesses of all sizes. It's also medium-sized and small businesses that would surely be adversely affected by the "forced choice" act. It's a membership grab by the unions to counter a steady decline in union membership. As a small business person, I am opposed to the card check legislation, it goes too far, and I applaud Specter standing up for small businesses around the nation.

Atta Boy, Arlen. It's about time you did something Republican.

Some common sense from some Specter after foolishly having supported the 787bln bailout put up by the dems (along with the 2 Repub. senators of Maine).

I hope he gets voted out next time around, but then again I hope everyone gets voted out. Term limits for EVERY office.

Present law allows any employees to sign cards saying they are interested in a union. It also requires a time period for all to become informed before voting on whether to have a union. This is called protecting the rights of ALL workers. The proposed legislation would promote the UNIONS, not the workers.

Secret ballot is the only fair way to do it. Democrats support BIG BUSINESS too..UNIONS ARE BIG BUSINESS and they are running companies into the ground and reaping the rewards. Unions filled Democratic coffers this past election, this bill and the automakers bailout is just payback. Keep drinking the kool-aid. RepubliCons have their agenda too and Obama is looking like a fool. Where's my Centrist/Federalist representation? Everyone is too far left or too far right! What happened to the intelligent middle of the road people.

This is excellent news! One small brightspot in today's political nightmare.

Union activists argue that government-supervised secret-ballot organizing elections are "inherently and intensely coercive" and that publicly signing a union membership card in the presence of union organizers, known as card-check organizing, is the only way that workers can freely choose to unionize. But due to union organizers' techniques, card checks often do not reflect workers' free and considered choice about union membership.
Even when organizers do not illegally threaten workers, card checks expose workers to organizers' psychological manipulations and give them only one side of the story. Card checks lead many workers to make impulse decisions and expose workers who wish time to consider their decision to harassment by union organizers. Cards signed in public simply do not represent workers' free and considered choice.
The privacy of the voting booth, however, protects workers from these abuses. Government-supervised elections ensure that workers can express their true decision after time for reflection and without pressure or fear of harassment.

Thank goodness we have a few senators like specter. We need to keep the secret ballot or the mafia owned unions will run over everyone. The employees would be afraid to vote against joining a union otherwise.

I'm ashamed that I ever voted for the Democrati party. They are EVIL . . .

Unionization will make US workers more expensive and more problematic to work with than their offshore counterparts. Do the math.

Secret ballots are the cornerstone of all democratic elections/votes. You have to ask, why is it so important to know who voted how?

Why anyone would think that unions are good after the disaster they caused with the big 3 auto makers is beyond me. They demand, and demanded year after year and now the companies are essentially a wreck. Why would anyone think they would be good for any business is not understandable. Unions are an outdated concept and so is their business model (they really are in the business of collecting dues/revenues). Perhaps if exsisting unions truly would have the employees best in mind they would gain some support and the their operating model would grow not shrink.

If unions are such a great thing, why is legislation needed to prop them up?
Unions are a thing of the past. This latest maneuver is just a power grab, a money grab, and a payback by dems for all the campaign money channeled to them. There is no logical reason to otherwise change existing organization rules.
If unions were necessary, or even if they were a good thing, they could survive on their own.
Let common sense prevail here.

Arlen Specter is a fraud and a big business shill; he has been for for 46 years. The man with the "Magic Bulls-it Theory." He is part of a vicious right wing cabal that has successfully conspired to defraud you of your hard earned dollars by transferring the wealth of the common man to international mega-conglomerates, who have no loyalties to anyone, save themselves.

These corporations have defrauded American consumers, forced us into debt at the point of the international gun and rode off into the sunset with their Fu-king blood money. If you want to suck the vile puss from the anuses of these Scum-bags, just so you can suck up to them for "a job," you deserve their worst. If you make less than 250k per year and you are a Republican, you are a social and political retard; you are totally incompetent and completely unable to make an intelligent choice.

It is long past time for these vile scum to be rounded up! They need to be sent to jail RIGHT NOW!

If unions are such a great thing, why is legislation needed to prop them up?
Unions are a thing of the past. This latest maneuver is just a power grab, a money grab, and a payback by dems for all the campaign money channeled to them. There is no logical reason to otherwise change existing organization rules.
If unions were necessary, or even if they were a good thing, they could survive on their own.
Let common sense prevail here.

The legislation's goal is to pressure people to support a union by making petitions more public. People will be afraid to oppose the union this way.
It's not hard to understand.

Here's the deal: If you can't get a winning vote in a secret ballot, the workers obviously don't want a union. Too bleeping bad.

I'm a Republican who supports this move by the unions. It has been the business leaders who have always used intimidation to beat back unionization of employees. They threaten individuals, or say, "I'll close the business down before we go union." Or they threaten anyone who attempts to organize with their jobs. Sometimes firing them for any other cause they can dream up, so they can say it wasn't because of their organzation attempts. I know, I used to work for one of those corporations. Unions are not anti-business. They benefit from businesses. Businesses are anti-union, because of nothing less than corporate greed. The business leaders are making millions off the backs of their minumum wage employees. Take Wal-Mart as an example.

How does a union help business serve the customer better? answer = it doesn't

This bill would crush small business...if there is no profit to be had a company will just close its doors. So now what? You have your union but 100 workers are put to the street. The current Unions are the cause in the manufacturing decline in the US over the last two decades.

As Americans, we have always been able to vote in secrecy. Why should we give up this fundamental privilege to accomodate the union. If the workers want a union, they will vote it in. Secret ballot won't change that outcome.

In China police crush efforts to set up independent unions as threats to the Communist Party. Many workers say the sole legal state-run union is a charade, a feckless bureaucracy that has only the pretense of representing the proletariat.

As we adopt more and more of Communist China's policies the Chinese are telling us to mind our own business when we try to lecture them on human rights.

The right of a workers to unionize should be a fundamental right.

I'm happy with what Senator Specter has done. The EFCA does do away with the secret ballot. If more than 50 percent sign cards, under whatever persuasion that is applied, the union MUST be recognized with no election. What union organizer with any experience is going to ask for an election that they might lose when 51 percent means a union has to be recognized. It is disingenuous to say that the secret ballot is not abolished. By choosing to get 51 percent of cards signed, there can not be an election. It seems pretty plain to me............

Rob, your argument is baseless. The well-founded fear of unions intimidating workers into signing a public petition card is easily applied by extension to whether or not they'll "choose" to hold a secret ballot. Clearly, a worker inclined to publicly choose to hold a secret election would be subject to the same intimidation as if they wanted to publicly check 'NO' on the same petition.

Well, all I can say is that I am glad that Dr Obama has revealed his agenda. I was almost supporting him there for a minute.

We need to get some more Republicans in Congress ASAP, and pray that he does only a limited amount of damage before then.

It does not look good, folks. Y'all will miss George W Bush before this is over.

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President Obama and his gang of fools do not promote the freedoms that our founding fathers established for all of us. They are increasing big government and not giving hard working Americans the opportunity to prosper. Pretty soon it will be more profitable to sit home and collect cash from one of his social reform organizations. I want to work hard and prosper like every other decent, hard-working American. I'm sure those who voted for change are now wishing to change their votes for Obama. Good luck to all of us.

I've had the union thugs knocking on my door very late at night just to make sure that I was voting for the "right" union when two unions were competing for top dog where I worked. Doesn't matter. That company is long gone...It was a manufacturing plant. How quaint! I can only imagine that if I had to sign a card in public...in front of these union guys...yeah, right. Well, let 'em have it. Sure, why not? What plants/factories are left? None are around here. What ever they get their hands on they will destroy. The unions have already sent our manufacturing base to China. What more can they f**k up? Walmart? Then what's left? McDonalds? Produce pickers? Government workers? Why would government workers unionize? Is the government workplace a corrosive work environment? Do the workers for the people treat folks unfairly? We have a military base near here and the union folks there are always stopping work for something...always! They are down to about 20 minutes of work an hour. Wonder why our jobs are overseas?
The once mighty and proud union...Still ruled by thugs!

God forbid something in favor of employees is offered. We are all seeing the result if you are left to the mercy of the employers. The percentage of the unionized workers in US is the lowest in history. And the misery out there is at the highest.
Go figure.

IT IS ABOUT TIME SENATOR SPECTER BEGAN ACTING LIKE A CONSERVATIVE! WE WONDER WHY HE CALLS HIMSELF A REPUBLICAN?

STAND UP ARLEN AND IF YOU NEED HELP WE CAN SEE THAT YOU GET A BRACE TO SUPPORT YOUR BACK TO ASSIST YOUR BACKBONE! i HAVE VOTED FOR YOU MANY TIMES WHILE RESIDING IN LANCASTER COUNTY, BUT YOU CERTAINLY HAVE NOT REFLECTED IN THE PAST THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE POINT OF VIEW. YOU MAY STILL BE ABLE TO STAND UP TALL ON YOUR OWN FOR WHAT IS RIGHT.

tRY A LITTLE HARDER, YOU MIGHT STILL BE ABLE TO MAKE