Corporate groups are expanding their attack on working people and the Employee Free Choice Act. The latest volley? Defending the status quo of ineffective penalties for when corporations break the law. Yeah, they went there.

In a Wall Street Journal editorial, John Irving, an adviser to the National Association of Manufacturers, advocates for the current toothless system that allows corporations to get off scot-free when they break the law. Irving helpfully explains just how toothless the current system is:

For example, employers who might sincerely assert to their employees that "unions cause plant shutdowns" or "could cause loss of customers" may or may not be exercising lawful free speech, depending on the views of the labor board at the time. If employers fall afoul of the law today, they face only nonpunitive "make-whole" and "cease and desist" sanctions. [...]

There is no provision in current law for punitive fines and treble damages. Nor is there any requirement, as there would be under EFCA, that nondiscretionary injunctions be sought against employers based solely upon the NLRB general counsel's determination of "reasonable cause."

What does that mean? Irving finds virtually no fault in intimidating threats, and is supportive of the fact that one of the most severe penalty employers face is to say they won't do it again. One of the most "severe" penalties corporations face when they break the law is to post a notice in the workplace saying they broke the law and promise to never do it again - presumably with their fingers crossed.

Irving then goes on to explain just what the Employee Free Choice Act would do for corporations that break the law:

But EFCA dramatically escalates these penalties. Under the new bill, the employer could be subject to a $20,000 fine for each questionable statement, and to near-automatic injunction proceedings based on union-filed unfair labor practice charges.

Hearing Irving complain about increased penalties for when corporations break the law is like hearing Bear Sterns complain about collapsing after its own actions led to its demise. Give me a break.

Besides, we need only look to the text of the Employee Free Choice Act to understand these proposed penalties:

"Any employer who willfully or repeatedly commits any unfair labor practice ... while employees of the employer are seeking representation by a labor organization or during the period after a labor organization has been recognized ... until the first collective bargaining contract ... shall, in addition to any make-whole remedy ordered, be subject to a civil penalty of not to exceed $20,000 for each violation.

In determining the amount of any penalty under this section, the Board shall consider the gravity of the unfair labor practice and the impact of the unfair labor practice on the charging party, on other persons seeking to exercise rights guaranteed by this Act, or on the public interest."

There you have it - these penalties are intended to punish corporations that WILLFULLY or REPEATEDLY break the law. Once again, we have corporations trying to say they're above the law and shouldn't be punished for breaking it.

This is the reality workers face when they try to join a union:

About 49 percent of employers openly threaten to close down a worksite when faced with a unionization drive. Untold more tell individual workers, in captive meetings, that jobs will be lost. 30 percent make good on the threat in real time, firing workers who engage in union activities. 82 percent hire unionbusting consulting firms which teach them how to most effectively shutter a union drive while either technically staying in the limits of the law, or breaking it in such a way that the gains will outweigh the eventual fines.

That is unacceptable, but it's what workers face every day in this country. If corporations break the law, they need to be held accountable. That's why it's so important to protect strong penalties in the Employee Free Choice Act. Don't let corporate groups talk their way out of this one - it's time corporations get the message that it's not OK to break the law.

Private equity firms are some of the most secretive, unregulated financial firms - and they want to buy up failed banks with taxpayers' money while keeping most of the profits for themselves.

SEIU President Andy Stern wrote about these firms' plans on the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal this morning:

Last month, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) released draft guidelines limiting the ability of private-equity firms to invest in failed banks. These new guidelines will ensure that the banks are well capitalized, that the details of their investments and loans, like those of any commercial banks, are made available to the FDIC, and that the FDIC and other agencies can prevent a rerun of the Savings & Loan crisis of the 1980s and '90s.

Meanwhile, private-equity stalwarts have been arguing against those guidelines. If we are to believe these guys, any attempt to rein in private equity's ability to invest in bank deals would stifle investment and hinder economic recovery.

They promise they'll play by the rules this time, that we can trust them, that they're looking out for taxpayers. But we've played that game before. And we learned ordinary Americans pay the price when financial markets are unregulated and overleveraged deals--which initially thrived--eventually go bust. [...]

The FDIC's new guidelines are a good first step, but full economic recovery will take more. We must continue to act more boldly and more broadly if we are truly serious about building a new financial model that rewards long-term sustainability over quick profits and fad investments.

These financial wolves want to bring their brand of risk-taking to the same banking industry whose own wild risk-taking helped collapse the economy in the first place.

You can make sure this doesn't happen. The FDIC will soon vote on tougher regulations on these private equity firms - they need to hear from you by Monday.

Click here to write to the FDIC in support of tough regulations for private equity firms.

Read our message to SEIU activists about this campaign below the fold.

It appears that big bonuses are back on Wall Street....er rather, maybe they never really left.

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US... Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available." Let me repeat that -- more than one-third of all pay in the U.S.

Adding to the slew of evidence that big banks are already returning to their old (economy-crushing) ways, the Washington Post reports that the top six U.S. banks have set aside $74 billion in 2009 for bonuses and other compensation--up $14 billion from last year alone. These six banks -- Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley -- are all TARP recipients, and we're not talking chump change here either.

So today, we thought we'd highlight one particularly egregious example of "old habits dying hard." And that's putting it lightly.

To date, Citigroup has received $45 billion dollars in bailout money. Curious as to what this deeply-wounded bank has been doing recently to get back on their feet and pay American taxpayers back? Raising interest rates on as many as 15 million credit card holders, organizing a call to "build opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act" and and doling out million-dollar bonuses to their "star" company bigwigs, of course! Because who deserves an $100 million bonus more than a big deal energy trader who works for a bank that's 33 percent owned by the government? (As Citi helpfully points out, giving company higher-ups compensation bonuses they can't really afford is how they retain talent and turn such monumental profits. Oh wait....)

"As millions of families struggle just to hang onto their homes and get through the next month's bills, the architects of the economic crisis are using our tax dollar bailouts on the kind of bonus money that finances glitzy Upper East Side Penthouses and glamorous Riviera getaways," said SEIU president Andy Stern. Rather than focusing on paying back the billions they borrowed, financial institutions like Citigroup continue to hold onto the failed policies of the past that enrich the very few at top while indebting the rest of America.

The White House's executive pay czar Kenneth Feinberg, who's charged with reining in what the administration sees as extravagantly oversized bonuses, will most likely vet whether or not Citigroup's energy trader Andrew Hall--who owns a 1,000-year-old castle and extensive modern art collection rumored to be valued at around $60 million--gets his $100 million bonus. Which begs the question: Are wealthy Americans truly turning back to pre-crisis habits, even as most of the country remains in deep economic stress?

Watch MSNBC's take on the situation:

Bailout architects have stuck to their story that the government will probably to get most of the bailout money back. But since the bailouts began almost a year ago, Wall Street's refusal to scale back dangerous pay habits like these make it seem probably that the federal government--and taxpayers--can say "sayonara" to some of their money.

Now more than ever, we need the Employee Free Choice Act to level the playing field against this kind of excessive corporate greed.

Congress can't seem to reach a consensus, but the American people have overwhelmingly made up their minds: we need a public health insurance option.

A new poll conducted by NBC and the Wall Street Journal [.pdf] is the latest in a series of polls to show convincing support for a choice between a private or public health insurance plan among the American people:

On the one hand, the American public overwhelmingly favors a choice between getting insurance coverage either through the private market or a government run option. Indeed, 76 percent of respondents said it was either "extremely" or "quite" important to "give people a choice of both a public plan administered by the federal government and a private plan for their health insurance." [From the Huffington Post]

The poll also showed clear majority support for key ingredients to fixing health care like shared responsibility among employers, government, and individuals to solve the health care crisis with strong protections for small businesses. In fact, every major proposal in President Obama's health care plan received strong support.

There's just one problem: many people didn't know it was the President's plan. Despite his aggressive push to pass health care reform, more than a third of all Americans still don't know enough about the President's plan for health care to know whether or not they support it. Once the pollsters described Obama's plan, people supported it overwhelmingly.

So that's where we come in. We've got to tell everyone we know that the President has proposed a strong plan to fix health care and it's moving through Congress as we speak. We're going to discuss the best way to do that tonight on a conference call with Senator Chris Dodd at 6pm EDT.

I hope you'll join us, and I hope you'll help us urge Congress to join the American people in supporting President Obama's plan to solve the health care crisis once and for all.

Today, the Wall Street Journal published an editorial piece, titled "Blinding Arbitration," in which you can witness the screaming of "injustice" in regards to the arbitration process proposed in the Employee Free Choice Act.

Fundamentally, it's backwards. Reading it, I began to wonder what reality these people live in.

The editorial paints the current contract negotiation process as something that "works." Ask anyone who's been through the process, and they'll tell you that it works - but only for corporations. The employees, instead, tend to get the shaft. Nearly two-thirds (62%) of workers who form a union still don't have a contract after one year, and companies refuse to negotiate in good faith in over 28 percent of cases.

To big business, it's a process that works because they have all of the control. As Former Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott once said, "we like driving the car, and we're not going to give the steering wheel to anybody but us."

Now, to keep the steering wheel in their hands, they're desperately beginning to make stuff up again. Remember how they told you that Employee Free Choice would "take away the secret ballot?," but it wasn't true, at all? (Even the Wall St. Journal admitted the Employee Free Choice Act doesn't take away secret ballots.)

Here's one of the arguments we're starting to see as it appears in the today's Wall Street Journal:

"Unions in particular will be inclined to ask for the moon (during first contract negotiation), knowing they will do well even if an arbitrator merely splits the difference...This would put (an arbitrator), with no real stake in a company's future, in charge of divining the perfect wage and work rules for that company."

It's completely unreasonable to think that an arbitrator has no stake in a company's future, or in being seen as fair. A successful long-term outcome from the arbitration process is critical to their livelihood and their reputation. Since an arbitrator is picked by both sides in a process similar to how a jury is selected, you better believe that the past success of their decisions will be evaluated and judged. Unsuccessful outcomes would eventually leave an arbitrator without a reputation and, essentially, without a job.

The "shoot for the moon" language is also laughable for anyone who's been through the arbitration process. "Shooting for the moon" only makes an arbitrator think you're less reasonable, and thus, the arbitrator is far less inclined to side with your demands. Historically, it's the side that's seen as most fair, most willing to compromise, and most reasonable that generally is more convincing to the arbitrator. Once again, this goes along with the notion that arbitrators must be seen as fair and neutral in order to maintain their viability as an arbitrator.

It's also important to see what we're talking about here. Reading the editorial, you almost get the picture that an arbitrator comes in, reinvents the wheel, dictates everything a company can do, and has no accountability to anyone.

But, in reality, arbitration would only used in situations where it's desperately needed. First contract arbitration is a safety net only if the parties' negotiations are unsuccessful, and only on the sticking points that would otherwise prevent workers from getting a contract. Most of all, this is only a process that would be used in the first contract only - and thus, only valid for the duration of that one particular contract.

Yet, this information is carefully omitted from this editorial, and quite frankly, from any argument we've seen.

Sure, there's "blindness" here. But it's our firm belief that the blindness here is caused by greed and the coercive power of the need for the "steering wheel." For once, if the "safety net" protection of first contract arbitration is in place, neither a company nor a union would be able to control the process unfairly. That, to the opponents of first contract arbitration, is the scariest thing they've had to contend with in decades.

Corporate front groups' one-line attack on the Employee Free Choice Act is the false claim that it somehow eliminates the secret ballot option for workers to join unions. Although it's blatantly false and dishonest, desperate corporate interests continue to hammer that argument without shame.

But it seems one of their closest allies is finally willing to acknowledge the truth. In this morning's Wall Street Journal, the corporate-friendly editorial board admits:

"The bill doesn't remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act," wrote the WSJ.

There you have it. The Employee Free Choice Act "doesn't remove the secret ballot."

This revelation comes after the same editorial board repeatedly pushed the "Big Lie" for months. Think Progress has the dirt:

The acknowledgment by the WSJ that the legislation doesn't eliminate the option of a secret-ballot election is surprising given that it has been one of the most aggressive pushers of the false meme:

- "Democrats in the House passed the Employee Free Choice Act, a measure that rewrites the rules for union organizing by eliminating secret-ballot elections." [WSJ, 3/8/07]

- "Labor wants to trash the secret-ballot elections that have been in place since the 1930s." [WSJ, 10/17/08]

- "Mr. Pryor knew the GOP would block the bill, which gets rid of secret ballots in union elections." [WSJ, 1/2/09]

- "Big Labor's drive to eliminate secret ballots for union elections has united American business in opposition." [WSJ, 3/11/09]

It's great to see the Wall Street Journal has seen the light. Next time you hear a corporate-funded front group pushing this lie, tell them to read the Wall Street Journal to get the facts.

In a thoughtful article, the Wall Street Journal writes, "The SEIU, whose ranks include nurses and other health-care workers along with workers ranging from janitors to security officers, supports Mr. Obama's health-care plan and wants states and local governments to receive financial relief in a recovery package. Also high on the SEIU's list is the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize workers by gathering signatures in favor of certification rather than via lengthy secret balloting."

Read the full article.