The Employee Free Choice Act  

Background 

The  Employee Free Choice Act is bipartisan legislation introduced by Sens.  Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Reps. George Miller (D-CA) and Peter King  (R-N.Y.). It passed the U. S. House of Representatives, 241-185, on  March 1, 2007, and gained majority support in the U.S. Senate on June  26, 2007, but was blocked by a Republican filibuster.  

The  best opportunity for working men and women to get ahead economically is  by uniting with coworkers to bargain with their employers for better  wages and benefits. These are tough economic times – soaring gas and  food prices, home foreclosures, un-affordable health care, and shattered  retirement security. Wages for working men and women have stagnated  while pay and bonuses for CEOs have sky-rocketed. 

The  Employee Free Choice Act is the most important legislative proposal in  seventy years because it will remove unfair barriers to union  representation and collective bargaining so that workers can get their  fair share and improve jobs and benefits for everyone. It will help  workers achieve the American Dream by giving them the freedom to choose a  union and bargain collectively. It will mean that the economy can work  for everyone again. 

Current  federal labor law – the National Labor Relations Act – has become a  barrier to workers’ rights. Companies intimidate, harass, coerce and  even fire people who try to organize unions. Workers are fired in a  quarter of private-sector union organizing campaigns and most workers  who try to form unions are subjected to repeated, coercive one-on-one  anti-union meetings with their supervisors. Even after workers  successfully form unions, 44 percent of the time they can’t get a first  contract. This is an urgent crisis for workers, blocking their free will  and their ability to bargain for a better future. 

Provisions 

The Employee Free Choice Act remedies these problems in three specific ways:

1. Removes Current Barriers that Prevent Workers from Forming Unions to Bargain Collectively  

It  requires that when a majority of employees have signed authorizations  designating the union as its bargaining representative, the union will  be certified by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). This requires  the Board to develop model authorization language and procedures for  establishing the validity of signed authorizations. Changes the current  corporate-dominated representation process that encourages companies to  coerce and intimidate workers who seek to form a union and pressure them  to influence their choice. 

2. Guarantees Workers a Contract When They Form a New Union.  

Provides  that when an employer and newly formed union are unable to bargain a  first contract within 90 days, either party can request mediation by the  Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). If no agreement has  been reached after 30 days of mediation, the dispute is referred to  binding arbitration. All time limits can be extended by mutual  agreement. This change eliminates current incentives for employers to  delay and stall negotiations and will dramatically reduce the delay,  frustration and animosity generated by the company-dominated system. 

3. Strengthens Penalties against Companies which Break the Law During Organizing Campaigns and First Contract Negotiations. 

Company  violations have become epidemic in large part because remedies for  corporate misconduct, such as illegal firings of union supporters, are  so weak that companies treat them as a cost of doing business and a  cheap way to scare workers away from their union support. New, tougher  remedies will provide more protection for workers’ rights. 

a. Civil Penalties: Up  to $20,000 per violation against companies found to have willfully or  repeatedly violated employees’ rights during an organizing campaign or  first contract negotiations. 

b. Treble Back Pay: Increases  to three times back pay the amount a company is required to pay when an  employee is discharged or discriminated against during an organizing  campaign or first contract negotiations. 

c. Mandatory Applications for Injunctive Remedies: Requires  the NLRB to seek a federal court injunction when there is reasonable  cause to believe a company has discharged or discriminated against  employees, threatened to do so, or engaged in conduct that significantly  interferes with employee rights during an organizing campaign or first  contract negotiations. This equalizes remedies, by making mandatory  injunctive remedies against companies the same as the currently required  injunctive remedies against unions.

The  Employee Free Choice Act would help workers who want to join a union do  so by ensuring fairness in the union selection process with three main  provisions: workers would have a fair and direct path to join unions  through a simple majority sign-up; employers who break the rules  governing the unionization process would face stiffer penalties; and a  first contract mediation and arbitration process would be introduced to  thwart bad-faith bargaining.

Passing  the Employee Free Choice Act and making it harder for management to  threaten workers seeking to unionize would be good for American workers.  It would help boost workers’ wages and benefits. And putting more money  in workers’ pockets would provide a needed boost for the U.S. economy.  Increasing unionization is a good way to get out of our current economic  troubles.

Thelaborparty.us  sees the Employee Free Choice Act as the first step to counter the  reductions in the contributions to employee pensions, health benefits  and wage freezes by federal, state, local and private corporations. An  increase in union participation is needed by the people to give the  people a stronger voice, as strength in numbers has always been a key to  success. The American People must also be willing to  reign in union power as well to keep the power of the unions out of the  hands of a few.

The American Jobs Act 

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release 

September 08, 2011 

1. Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow 

• Cutting the payroll tax in half for 98 percent of businesses:  The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on  their first $5 million in payroll, targeting the benefit to the 98  percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold.
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• A complete payroll tax holiday for added workers or increased wages:  The President’s plan will completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms  that increase their payroll by adding new workers or increasing the  wages of their current worker (the benefit is capped at the first $50  million in payroll increases).
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• Extending 100% expensing into 2012: This continues an effective incentive for new investment.
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• Reforms and regulatory reductions to help entrepreneurs and small businesses access capital.
   

2. Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America 

• A “Returning Heroes” hiring tax credit for veterans: This provides tax credits from $5,600 to $9,600 to encourage the hiring of unemployed veterans.
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• Preventing up to 280,000 teacher layoffs, while keeping cops and firefighters on the job.
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• Modernizing at least 35,000 public schools across the country, supporting new science labs, Internet-ready classrooms and renovations at schools across the country, in rural and urban areas.
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• Immediate investments in infrastructure and a bipartisan National Infrastructure Bank, modernizing our roads, rail, airports and waterways while putting hundreds of thousands of workers back on the job.
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• A New “Project Rebuild”,  which will put people to work rehabilitating homes, businesses and  communities, leveraging private capital and scaling land banks and other  public-private collaborations.
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• Expanding access to high-speed wireless as part of a plan for freeing up the nation’s spectrum.

3. Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs. 

• The most innovative reform to the unemployment insurance program in 40 years:  As part of an extension of unemployment insurance to prevent 5 million  Americans looking for work from losing their benefits, the President’s  plan includes innovative work-based reforms to prevent layoffs and give  states greater flexibility to use UI funds to best support job-seekers,  including:  
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  • Work-Sharing:  UI for workers whose employers choose work-sharing over layoffs.
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  • A  new “Bridge to Work” program: The plan builds on and improves  innovative state programs where those displaced take temporary,  voluntary work or pursue on-the-job training.
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  • Innovative  entrepreneurship and wage insurance programs: States will also be  empowered to implement wage insurance to help reemploy older workers and  programs that make it easier for unemployed workers to start their own  businesses.
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• A $4,000 tax credit to employers for hiring long-term unemployed workers.
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• Prohibiting employers from discriminating against unemployed workers when hiring.
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• Expanding job opportunities for low-income youth and adults  through a fund for successful approaches for subsidized employment,  innovative training programs and summer/year-round jobs for youth.

4. Tax Relief for Every American Worker and Family 

• Cutting payroll taxes in half for 160 million workers next year:  The President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last year  to cut workers payroll taxes in half in 2012 – providing a $1,500 tax  cut to the typical American family, without negatively impacting the  Social Security Trust Fund.
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• Allowing more Americans to refinance their mortgages at today’s near 4 percent interest rates, which can put more than $2,000 a year in a family’s pocket.

5. Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan. 

To  ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will  call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit  reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit  target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan  that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit  reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing  our debt as a share of the economy. 

AMERICAN JOBS ACT OVERVIEW 

The  American people understand that the economic crisis and the deep  recession weren’t created overnight and won’t be solved overnight. The  economic security of the middle class has been under attack for decades.  That’s why President Obama believes we need to do more than just  recover from this economic crisis – we need to rebuild the economy the  American way, based on balance, fairness, and the same set of rules for  everyone from Wall Street to Main Street.  We can work together to  create the jobs of the future by helping small business entrepreneurs,  by investing in education, and by making things the world buys. The  President understands that to restore an American economy that’s built  to last we cannot afford to outsource American jobs and encourage  reckless financial deals that put middle class security at risk.

To  create jobs, the President unveiled the American Jobs Act – nearly all  of which is made up of ideas that have been supported by both Democrats  and Republicans, and that Congress should pass right away to get the  economy moving now. The purpose of the American Jobs Act is simple: put  more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working  Americans. And it would do so without adding a dime to the deficit.

Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow 

New Tax Cuts to Businesses to Support Hiring and Investment: 

The President is proposing three tax cuts to provide immediate incentives to hire and invest:

Cutting the Payroll Tax Cut in Half for the First $5 Million in Wages: 

This  provision would cut the payroll tax in half to 3.1% for employers on  the first $5 million in wages, providing broad tax relief to all  businesses but targeting it to the 98 percent of firms with wages below  this level.

• Temporarily Eliminating Employer Payroll Taxes on Wages for New Workers or Raises for Existing Workers: 
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• The  President is proposing a full holiday on the 6.2% payroll tax firms pay  for any growth in their payroll up to $50 million above the prior year,  whether driven by new hires, increased wages or both. This is the kind  of job creation measure that CBO has called the most effective of all  tax cuts in supporting employment.
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• Extending 100% Expensing into 2012: 
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• The President is proposing to extend 100 percent expensing, the largest  temporary investment incentive in history, allowing all firms – large  and small – to take an immediate deduction on investments in new plants  and equipment.
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• Helping Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses Access Capital and Grow: 
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• The  President’s plan includes administrative, regulatory and legislative  measures – including those developed and recommended by the President’s  Jobs Council – to help small firms start and expand. This includes  changing the way the government does business with small firms. The  Administration will soon announce a plan to accelerate government  payments to small contractors to help put money in their hands faster.  
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• The President is also charging his CIO and CTO to, within 90 days, stand  up a one-stop, online portal for small businesses to easily access  government services. As part of the President’s Startup America  initiative, the Administration will work with the SEC to conduct a  comprehensive review of securities regulations from the perspective of  these small companies to reduce the regulatory burdens on small business  capital formation in ways that are consistent with investor protection,  including expanding “crowdfunding” opportunities and increasing  mini-offerings. Finally, the President’s plan calls for Congress to pass  comprehensive patent reform, increase guarantees for bonds to help  small businesses compete for infrastructure projects and remove  burdensome withholding requirements that keep capital out of the hands  of job creators.

Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America  

• Tax Credits and Career Readiness Efforts to Support Veterans’ Hiring: 
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• The  President is proposing a Returning Heroes Tax Credit of up to $5,600  for hiring unemployed veterans who have been looking for a job for more  than six months, and a Wounded Warriors Tax Credit of up to $9,600 for  hiring unemployed workers with service-connected disabilities who have  been looking for a job for more than six months, while creating a new  task force to maximize career readiness of service members.
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• Preventing Layoffs of Teachers, Cops and Firefighters: The  President is proposing to invest $35 billion to prevent layoffs of up  to 280,000 teachers, while supporting the hiring of tens of thousands  more and keeping cops and firefighters on the job. These funds would  help states and localities avoid and reverse layoffs now, requiring that  funds be drawn down quickly. Under the President’s proposal, $30  billion be directed towards educators and $5 billion would support the  hiring and retention of public safety and first responder personnel.
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• Modernizing Over 35,000 Schools – From Science Labs and Internet-Ready Classrooms to Renovated Facilities: 
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• The  President is proposing a $25 billion investment in school  infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools –  investments that will create jobs, while improving classrooms and  upgrading our schools to meet 21st century needs. This  includes a priority for rural schools and dedicated funding for Bureau  of Indian Education funded schools. Funds could be used for a range of  emergency repair and renovation projects, greening and energy efficiency  upgrades, asbestos abatement and removal, and modernization efforts to  build new science and computer labs and to upgrade technology in our  schools. The President is also proposing a $5 billion investment in  modernizing community colleges (including tribal colleges), bolstering  their infrastructure in this time of need while ensuring their ability  to serve future generations of students and communities.
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• Making an Immediate Investment in Our Roads, Rails and Airports:
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• The President’s plan includes $50 billion in immediate investments for  highways, transit, rail and aviation, helping to modernize an  infrastructure that now receives a grade of “D” from the American  Society of Civil Engineers and putting hundreds of thousands of  construction workers back on the job. The President’s plan includes  investments to improve our airports, support NextGen Air Traffic  Modernization efforts, and resources for the TIGER and TIFIA programs,  which target competitive dollars to innovative multi-modal  infrastructure programs. It will also take special steps to enhance  infrastructure-related job training opportunities for individuals from  underrepresented groups and ensure that small businesses can compete for  infrastructure contracts. The President will work administratively to  speed infrastructure investment through a recently issued Presidential  Memorandum developed with his Jobs Council directing departments and  agencies to identify high impact, job-creating infrastructure projects  that can be expedited in a transparent manner through outstanding review  and permitting processes. The call for greater infrastructure  investment has been joined by leaders from AFL-CIO President Richard  Trumka to U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue.
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• Establishing a National Infrastructure Bank: 
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• The  President is calling for Congress to pass a National Infrastructure  Bank capitalized with $10 billion, in order to leverage private and  public capital and to invest in a broad range of infrastructure projects  of national and regional significance, without earmarks or traditional  political influence. The Bank would be based on the model Senators Kerry  and Hutchison have championed while building on legislation by Senators  Rockefeller and Lautenberg and the work of long-time infrastructure  bank champions like Rosa DeLauro and the input of the President’s Jobs  Council.
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• Project Rebuild: Putting People Back to Work Rehabilitating Homes, Businesses and Communities.  
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• The President is proposing to invest $15 billion in a national effort  to put construction workers on the job rehabilitating and refurbishing  hundreds of thousands of vacant and foreclosed homes and businesses.  Building on proven approaches to stabilizing neighborhoods with high  concentrations of foreclosures, Project Rebuild will bring in expertise  and capital from the private sector, focus on commercial and residential  property improvements, and expand innovative property solutions like  land banks. This approach will not only create construction jobs but  will help reduce blight and crime and stabilize housing prices in areas  hardest hit by the housing crisis.
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• Expanding Access to High-Speed Wireless in a Fiscally Responsible Way: 
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• The  President is calling for a deficit reducing plan to deploy high-speed  wireless services to at least 98 percent of Americans, including those  in more remote rural communities, while freeing up spectrum through  incentive auctions, spurring innovation, and creating a nationwide,  interoperable wireless network for public safety. 

Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs  

• Reform Our Unemployment Insurance System to Provide Greater Flexibility, While Ensuring 6 Million People Do Not Lose Benefits:  
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• Drawing on the best ideas of both parties and the most innovative  states, the President is proposing the most sweeping reforms to the  unemployment insurance (UI) system in 40 years help those without jobs  transition to the workplace. Alongside these reforms, the President is  reiterating his call to extend unemployment insurance, preventing 6  million people looking for work from losing their benefits and extending  what the independent Congressional Budget Office has determined is the  highest “bang for the buck” option to increase economic activity.
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• Reemployment Assistance:  
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• States will be required to design more rigorous reemployment services  for the long-term unemployed and to conduct assessments to review the  longest-term claimants of UI to assess their eligibility and help them  develop a work-search plan.  These reforms are proven to speed up UI  beneficiaries’ return to work.
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• Work-sharing: 
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• The  President will expand “work-sharing” to encourage arrangements using UI  that keep employees on the job at reduced hours, rather than laying  them off.
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• State Flexibility for Bold Reforms to Put the Long-Term Unemployed Back To Work: 
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• The  President is proposing to provide additional funds to allow states to  introduce new programs aimed at long-term unemployed workers, including:
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• “Bridge to Work” Programs:
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• States  will be able to put in place reforms that build off what works in  programs like Georgia Works or Opportunity North Carolina, while  instituting important fixes and reforms that ensure minimum wage and  fair labor protections are being enforced.  These approaches permits  long-term unemployed workers to continue receiving UI while they take  temporary, voluntary work or pursue work-based training. The President’s  plan requires compliance with applicable minimum wage and other worker  rights laws.
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• Wage Insurance:   
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• States will be able to use UI to encourage older, long-term unemployed  Americans to return to work in new industries or occupations.
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• Startup Assistance:  
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• States will have flexibility to help long-term unemployed workers create their own jobs by starting their own small businesses.

Other Reemployment Reforms: 

States will be able to seek waivers from the Secretary of Labor to  implement other innovative reforms to connect the long-term unemployed  to work opportunities.

• Tax Credits for Hiring the Long-Term Unemployed: 
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• The President is proposing a tax credit of up to $4,000 for hiring workers who have been looking for a job for over six months.
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• Investing in Low-Income Youth and Adults: 
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• The  President is proposing a new Pathways Back to Work Fund to provide  hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities  to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries. The  Initiative will do three things: i) support summer and year-round jobs  for youth, building off of successful programs that supported over  370,000 such jobs in 2009 and 2010; ii) support subsidized employment  opportunities for low-income individuals who are unemployed, building  off the successful TANF Emergency Contingency Fund wage subsidy program  that supported 260,000 jobs in 2009 and 2010; and iii) support promising  and innovative local work-based job and training initiatives to place  low-income adults and youths in jobs quickly.
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• Prohibiting Employers from Discriminating Against Unemployed Workers:  
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• The President’s plan calls for legislation that would make it unlawful  to refuse to hire applicants solely because they are unemployed or to  include in a job posting a provision that unemployed persons will not be  considered.  

 More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family 

• Cutting Payroll Taxes in Half for 160 Million Workers Next Year: 
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• The  President’s plan will expand the payroll tax cut passed last December  by cutting workers payroll taxes in half next year. This provision will  provide a tax cut of $1,500 to the typical family earning $50,000 a  year. As with the payroll tax cut passed in December 2010, the American  Jobs Act will specify that Social Security will still receive every  dollar it would have gotten otherwise, through a transfer from the  General Fund into the Social Security Trust Fund.
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• Helping More Americans Refinance Mortgages at Today’s Historically Low Interest Rates: 
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• The  President has instructed his economic team to work with Fannie Mae and  Freddie Mac, their regulator the FHFA, major lenders and industry  leaders to remove the barriers that exist in the current refinancing  program (HARP) to help more borrowers benefit from today’s historically  low interest rates. This has the potential to not only help these  borrowers, but their communities and the American taxpayer, by keeping  borrowers in their homes and reducing risk to Fannie Mae and Freddie  Mac. 

Fully Paid for as Part of the President’s Long-Term Deficit Reduction Plan  

• To  ensure that the American Jobs Act is fully paid for, the President will  call on the Joint Committee to come up with additional deficit  reduction necessary to pay for the Act and still meet its deficit  target. The President will, in the coming days, release a detailed plan  that will show how we can do that while achieving the additional deficit  reduction necessary to meet the President’s broader goal of stabilizing  our debt as a share of the economy.

Tax Breaks to bring US Corporate Jobs back to the United States (For Review at a Later Date)

Here are some statistics and funding possibilities put forth by the Obama Administration: 

$, Billions: 

Tax Cuts to Help America’s Small Businesses Hire and Grow 

70 

Cut employer payroll taxes in half & bonus payroll cut for new jobs/wages  

65

Extend 100% expensing in 2012

5

Putting Workers Back on the Job While Rebuilding and Modernizing America  

140 

Teacher rehiring and first responders

35

Modernizing schools

30

Immediate surface transportation

50

Infrastructure bank

10

Rehabilitation/re-purposing of vacant property (neighborhood stabilization)

15

National wireless initiative

0*

Veterans hiring initiative

n.a.

Pathways Back to Work for Americans Looking for Jobs 

62 

UI Reform and Extension

49

Jobs tax credit for long term unemployed

8

Pathways back to work fund

5

More Money in the Pockets of Every American Worker and Family 

175 

Cutting employee payroll taxes in half in 2012

175

TOTAL 

447 

* Proposal has a gross cost of $10bn, but a net deficit reducing impact of $18bn because of spectrum auction proceeds. 

Thelaborparty.us does not endorse nor support any of the statistics or funding for The American Jobs Act. The  party believes in working through congressional legislation and labor union support to make sure this Act is beneficial to labor, as well as  business.