Modern News

From thetruthabouttheefca.com

You know things aren’t going well for the forces of … er, let’s just say proponents of the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act. One commentator is down to invoking the name of union folk hero Norma Rae — not her organizing effort so much as her battle with an insurance industry.

Doesn’t make much sense? Unions and their allies are trying to tie the wildly unpopular card check bill with anything that could be more sympathetic. So in this case it’s about getting back at insurance companies (the thought being, it seems, that more workers in unions will mean more power for the Big Labor special interest to attack the insurance lobby).

There’s something that union bosses and their allies may want to remember about the true story of Norma Rae’s union drive. This plot summary from Wikipedia:

Norma Rae Webster is a minimum-wage worker in a cotton mill that has taken too much of a toll on the health of her family for her to ignore her Dickensian working conditions. After hearing a speech by New York union organizer Reuben Warshowsky, Norma Rae decides to join the effort to unionize her shop. This causes conflict at home when Norma Rae’s husband Sonny assumes that her activism is a result of a romance between herself and Reuben. Despite the pressure brought to bear by management, Norma Rae successfully orchestrates an election to unionize the factory, resulting in victory for the union and presumably capitulation for the demands. When Reuben first comes to the factory he tries to get all the workers to start a union, but is soon chased out of the small town. Days later Norma Rae shuts down her machine and stands on top of it striking. Soon the whole factory is with her and a union starts.

Ho, ho, that’s rich! Norma Rae won a ground-up organizing election but Big Labor wants to effectively eliminate the secret ballot process.