Today we continue our series on the Top 10 Stories of 2009 here at Facing South. You can see numbers 6 to 10 here, here, here, here and here. And coming in at #4 ...
Remember when workers' rights and the Employee Free Choice Act was at the top of Obama and the Democrats' agenda? Yeah, I hardly can either.
Yet in the spring, labor was hopeful -- and the Chamber of Commerce fearful -- that the landmark legislation that would make it easier for employees to join a union would be law by year's end.
But then in March, TV and other media outlets across the country began quoting "research" claiming to prove that the EFCA would throw thousands of people out of work -- a scary prospect in the midst of economic recession.
Their source? A study published on March 5 titled "An Empirical Assessment of the Employee Free Choice Act: The Economic Implications," which argued that the EFCA would cause 600,000 people to lose work. The author was one Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist at corporate consulting firm LECG.
CBS, MSNBC and The Wall Street Journal and other media all pointed to the report, describing Layne-Farrar as a "noted economist" of a "non-partisan" research group. Fox News got especially excited, quoting it's "finding" that the EFCA "would result in an increase in the unemployment rate of around 1 and a half to 3 percentage points."
What Fox and many of the others didn't mention -- but Facing South revealed -- is that the study was paid-for piece of contract research for a new outfit called The Alliance for Main Street Jobs. And who are these nice-sounding people? The very corporate trade groups that have been lobbying to defeat the EFCA.
As we showed, the Alliance:
On top of that, we were the first to reveal that the study itself was based on flimsy evidence: Layne-Farrar based her entire projections on the experience of just three provinces in Canada up to three decades ago.
Seems like the media could have mentioned that, too.
PHOTO: Anne Layne-Farrar
Want to help Facing South keep breaking the big stories? Make a special, year-end tax-deductible gift to the Institute Investigative Fund -- and our new special project to train Southern bloggers, the Freedom Journalism School -- today! If you donate by December 31, 2009, a Facing South reader will match all gifts up to $10,000. Go pitch in now!
Remember when workers' rights and the Employee Free Choice Act was at the top of Obama and the Democrats' agenda? Yeah, I hardly can either. Yet in the spring, labor was hopeful -- and the Chamber of Commerce fearful -- that the landmark legislation that would make it easier for employees to join a union would be law by year's end.
But then in March, TV and other media outlets across the country began quoting "research" claiming to prove that the EFCA would throw thousands of people out of work -- a scary prospect in the midst of economic recession.
Their source? A study published on March 5 titled "An Empirical Assessment of the Employee Free Choice Act: The Economic Implications," which argued that the EFCA would cause 600,000 people to lose work. The author was one Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist at corporate consulting firm LECG.
CBS, MSNBC and The Wall Street Journal and other media all pointed to the report, describing Layne-Farrar as a "noted economist" of a "non-partisan" research group. Fox News got especially excited, quoting it's "finding" that the EFCA "would result in an increase in the unemployment rate of around 1 and a half to 3 percentage points."
What Fox and many of the others didn't mention -- but Facing South revealed -- is that the study was paid-for piece of contract research for a new outfit called The Alliance for Main Street Jobs. And who are these nice-sounding people? The very corporate trade groups that have been lobbying to defeat the EFCA.
As we showed, the Alliance:
[I]s chaired by HR Policy Association and includes the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the Associated Builders and Contractors, The International Council of Shopping Centers, the Real Estate Roundtable, the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.Sounds like something you'd want to mention in covering the study. But as we found, media outlets continued to report Layne-Farrar's "study" as a piece of objective, disinterested scholarship.
On top of that, we were the first to reveal that the study itself was based on flimsy evidence: Layne-Farrar based her entire projections on the experience of just three provinces in Canada up to three decades ago.
Seems like the media could have mentioned that, too.
PHOTO: Anne Layne-Farrar
Want to help Facing South keep breaking the big stories? Make a special, year-end tax-deductible gift to the Institute Investigative Fund -- and our new special project to train Southern bloggers, the Freedom Journalism School -- today! If you donate by December 31, 2009, a Facing South reader will match all gifts up to $10,000. Go pitch in now!
Dear Chris Kromm,
Now being April 3, 2010 and a full 1/4 of a year gone no comments have been made to your article in this post. Not because of lack of interest, rather more pressing issues are at hand. Whether the listing of what by nature would be partisan in nature factions against or for the so called EFCA,it must be noted just having a job of any kind today is of more concern.
Suggested in your article the real but somewhat fantasized picture of big business bullying is by in large gone. In that the unions have accomplished their membership goal and then some. Now it they have been struggling to maintain membership understandably for two reasons. #1 Very large hit in many industrial bases due to the economy Nationally and Internationally. #2 With the exception of the "undocumented worker" better conditions for workers because of competition and laws backing the NLRB and the Department of Labor.
At the same time what was real and somewhat perceptual bullying images of both employers and unions of the early and middle 1900's still exist with the unions. To some large extent the reduction in working union members are at odds end, being the cause seeing the effect.
The union, just as the employer before them now see both sides of the same coin. Now is the time in our history when balancing is called for. If the employer is really treating the employee well there is no need for the union and vice versa. Still as a watch dog the union stands with an ability to stand for workers when that isn't the case. Both have there place. The pressures and arm twisting of the EFCA exist on its face. One on one lobbying by either management or union and real or perceived arm twisting must not be in place. The secret ballot is both a traditional right and safeguard for the worker.
By Ian Jay Germaine Columnist Canadafreepress.com
April 3, 2010 10:00 AM | Reply