I sure wish Americans would study some of their own history on their own. The public schools won't teach about labor/union history and for good reason. If workers knew of their history all workers would be unionized. Without unions there would be no 8 hour work day, 40 hour work week, minimum wage, paid vacations, paid holidays, child labor laws, safety on the job laws....If there were no union movement there would still be children working in mines and workers get paid next to nothing. In 1900 when workers were lucky enough to be paid a dollar a day, John D. Rockefeller was worth over a billion dollars.

Mike Michaud is in favor of this card check?????????? He is in DC. Maybe he does not remember that the mill workers in Millinocket and

East Millinocket are not working ----- THE UNIONS SHUT THOSE MILLS ! ! ! And the spending and printing of money that our grandkids will have to pay back! I think obama is a NUT and I am not to sure about [ANY] of our representatives in Augusta or DC, they are taxing us and turning this great country into a socialist state , taking from me and all who have worked all their lives to give it to bums who are to lazy to work and people who are not legally in this country. GOD BLESS THE U.S.A.

Unions were once a very needed organization! Now they are simply divisive "For Profit" business killers!

screw the unions, we do not need them in this day and age

Unions are the Paron Saints of useless employees.

Ok folks continue to watch the middle class slip into poverty while corporate giants steal our tax dollars to supplement corporate welfare at the same time they turn profits into millions and billions of dollars just to make executives and stockholders rich. The great american way. People get a clue. There is a change in the air I believe a workers revolution. Get on board or move out of the way.

RevGerald-Without unions the big 3 wouldn't be on the verge on becoming the big 1. And yes I know about this garbage first hand as my profession for the last 20 years has been going in to manufacturing facilities around the all across the US and some International facilities help them to be more cost-effective. Problem number 1-Ignorance and the "we always have done it that way mindset" Problem number 2-Unions inability to do anything else than what they are programmed for-like watching a million dollar assembly line destroy itself because it is not the employees job to take 2 steps and shut it down. You want to know why they are imploding check out this link http://info.detnews.com/video/index.cfm?id=1189 < -pay attention to the last statements. This isn't 1900 anymore and if you don't get off your but you can sink or swim. Maybe they should teach the kids in school about that fact -moron

"Sen. Susan Collins filibustered the bill on a previous trip through Congress."

Attn: Editor

Of course business leaders will fight this. That way they can keep their camps, vacations numerous cars, etc., etc. while their employees have to apply for food stamps to be able to feed their families and pay the bills. Maine is like a third world country when it comes to employee rights. The only entities protected by Maine work force laws are the employers so their bank accounts can get fatter at the expense and suffering of their employees. It is a case of the "haves and the have nots" and the "haves" can do what ever they want because they are the one's in power.

Can't blame a business person to close shop. Just another ploy for the Democrats to lock in votes.

Everyone should have the right to join a union BUT why should these a$$`s be forced down the throats of people who don`t believe in them and don`t want them. Without a ballot vote held in control by the National labor relations board can we ever be sure it wasn`t stong armed thru. With the pro-union workers and unions intimidating the other workers. We just went thru this with the teamster last year and luckily our terminal rejected them. but the terminals that voted them in have several workers who say they were lied to right from the get-go. So if this does pass the union can demand what it wants for dues and just take it. And the only way to stop them will be unemployment and find another place that doesn`t have a union.

The main reason I voted for Susan Collins was she was against the this.

The issue isn't about whether unions are useful or not or wheter they have a right to exist or not. Its about two things. Declining union membership and getting the money from new members and unions running roughshod over individual rights.

Maxene56 : The have nots are beating our heads in. They just got a couple trillion dollars in taxpayer money. Where have you been?

How do you think Alfond was able to give away so much money? He didn't share his profit with the workers. Is that how you get to be a "business leader"?

I think there are enough laws in todays age that there are absolutely no need for Union's.... If the perosn isn't doing their job than fire em, do they think humiliating a person is going to make them do their jobs better, no! Maybe send them over the edge and the company get a lawsuit for harrasment.

Unions don't shut down businesses or mills, corporate greed does. If there are no unions then people are nothing but wage slaves and business leaders know it. There's nothing more counter to individual rights than depending on someone for a paycheck. In the last analysis, who do you think business leaders will take care of -- their own luxuries and families or the workers? Recognize business for what it is -- something that needs to be controlled. You can always vote politicians out of office -- what do you do with a multi-national corporation like Irving Woodlands?

UNIONIZE .....IT IS ONLY WAY TO GET A FAIR WAGE AGAINST PREPOSTEROUS PROFITEERS.... DAVID ROCKEFELLER IS PROBABLY BEHIND THIS WITH THE ASTOR'S AND THE LIKE..... IT IS NOT FOR THE CONCERN OF THE PEOPLE! WISE UP FOLKS! did you read maine's bogus stimulus plans????? fix the roads .... tear down instead of renovate... no way thank you... really disappointed that all legislaters went for this one but, NOT surprised!!!

HOW ARE YOU GOING TO COMPETE IN A WORLD ECONOMY WITH UNIONS? WHY HAS THE U S LOST SO MANY JOBS TO OTHER COUNTRIES? AGAIN, MAINE NEEDS TO GO REPUBLICAN - PRO BUSINESS!!!

Emily,

If you don`t want to depend on a company for a paycheck then start your own business.

If you want to be a card holding union member that is your right to work for a union shop.

But it should be my right not to have a union forced down my throat and if I don`t like it they will take my money anyways.

If I work for a non-union shop then if a union does get in then it should be and open shop.

No union should dectate to the owner or non-union employees what they have to do.

So if a union comes in and I don`t like it I have to quit my job to get away from the scum sucking bottom, feeding unions.

There is nothing wrong with having the National Labor Relations Board oversee the voting.

Why does This Rep. Michaud believe it has to be behind closed doors where intimidation can happen.

But just remember it can work both ways, If a union is brought in then the owner has the choose to close and open up under another name.

If you don`t like your working condition then change your job to a union shop

With this economy, I can think of better things to spend $40 for union dues.

And if the union is in place when your hired they charge new employees a fee to join, example $300.00 to drive school bus for first student in orland/ bucksport then 2 1/2 your hourly wage every month. now those are part-time jobs. working 20 - 25 hrs a week and paying $30 - $40 a month.

Now with that fee it is hard to recruit new drivers so the union has tied the hands of the employer

Ah, we got em where we want em - right at each others throats. Seems to be a whole lot of class envy going on!

It's not class envy, it's the American dream. Hoping someday to work their way up while driving s..t- boxes and barely making it. I don't care about unions but I do care about hard-working people that deserve better. Minimum wage is for people that live off their mothers and girlfriends. No one else can afford to live on it.

Business owners who put their life savings, heart and souls into small businesses and end up making them 'big' deserve to make money it is called capitalism! They also should pay a fair wage and Alfond did do that. My ex husband worked for Dexter Shoe as did lots of other people until the jobs went overseas because labor was cheaper and the cost of business in the states was ridiculous. A union would have forced the move sooner in my opinion.

I totally agree with Kylie00! All great points.

Unionionization is not what bothers me, pepole will make up their own minds on that. Illiminating the secret ballot does.

Please get rid of the ignorance and lies. The EFCA does NOT remove the right to a free election. It leaves it in the hands of the employees and removes the ability to spend months firing and intimidating employees from the employers tool box. If after an election ONLY 30% of the employees want to use the same card check to request a decertification election, they will get it no questions asked. As far as the idiots that think that the past is gone and we all live in a fairyland of fair employers with great laws to protect us, 20,000 employees are fired every year for trying to form a Union. None have ever been fired for trying to get rid of one.

If you don't like Unions, go back to the 1800's and join the confederacy they didn't like the strongest Union ever seen, the U.S.A. If you don't like the Union then don't vote for it. If more than 1/2 of your co-workers want it, then YOU can leave and go find a non-union shop.

The Unions did not kill the big three with the cost of health care or wages. The corporations that spent the money that was supposed to be and promised to be invested to pay for the future was spent and given away to the the CEOs and the richest share holders. Right now Exxon after making a world record profit for years has the most underfunded pension fund in the country. Is THAT the unions fault or is it the fault of greed and short sightedness. Chinese auto workers make $1.00 an hour and if you think that is OK, you go and apply for a Chinese job. I will stay here.

As far as intimidating the workers, I am sorry you are scared and sorry you think your friends are wimps. I am a Mainer and I will make up my own mind. I won't be intimidated by a Union or by rampant ignorance.

YAH NARSBAR- besides the employee free choice act does not i repeat DOES NOT eliminate the secret ballot. It puts the choice of having a secret ballot in the hands of the employees and out of the hands of the employer. The corporate interests who want to keep worker wages low so they can keep their salaries through the roof don't bother to mention this.At their press conference not one worker spoke. Obviously they feel that workers are not entitled to their own opinions being known or are to stupid to speak for themselves. E.F.C.A.does not force anyplace to unionize.It just makes it easier for those if they have a majority to do so. This is how it is done in Canada and Europe and the U.S. until 1947 the Taft Hartley Act made it nearly impossible toform new unions. The Taft Hartley passed on the fear communists would infiltrate the unions, a ridiclous proposition today. Those people who commented about socialism should actually read some books about what it really is. A far cry from unionism. The unions are not killing the big 3. The workers are efficiently making the crappy designs picked by managment. Workers have the legal right to unionize. It is their decision and management has no right to interfer.

TO vichet: that's what they want you to think. Do you really think that any of that money is going to go to the have nots? More likely it will line the pockets of corrupt public officials and their cronies who will stand in line with their hands out cause it is free money.

Maxene56, $256 Billion dollars of the stinulus packages is going direct to means-tested welfare programs. Yesterday another $75 billion dollars is going to people who made bad decisions about how to finance thier home purchases. If you have a regular mortgage you dont qualifify and if times are tough for you ... you file bancruptcty and loose your house, but if you were stupid you and made a bad choice you get a government handout. Only 6% of the money being spent is for construction. Low income earners get tax breaks. Take money from one group give it to another.

Folks it makes a ballot secret the last tool available and least usable.... not the first in forming a union. It makes behind the scences intimidation by union bosses inevitable...From the bar you sit in after work to your home you go to after a long day at work. Union formation will happen outside of the public eye. EFCA's primary gosl is to pry lots of money from the workers and insure failed unions continued existance.

intimidation is very easy NarBars, Matter of fact it can be done to you and anyone else

why should these little cards have to be signed in the back rooms somewhere,

Why not just have a public vote, evreryone comes forward and drops their ballot in the box

At the end of the day count them and get the results

But then again the owner can close the doors and move operations and reopen just to keep the union out

When a business closes where are the unions to help the workers.

when the mills closed who paid for the re-education of those workers?

wasn`t the unions

Unions may have had there place in time but but with the high wages they insist on businesses are closed for good

this is not the time for unions

Narsbars should stop drinking that union kool-aid, because it seems to be affecting his judgement. CardCheck WILL effectively destroy our right to a private ballot, because the union bosses and thugs will become able to implement immediate unionism by using their typical intimidation and scare tactics to make people sign their petition. If they get enough signatures by using these school yard bully tactics, they will skip straight into forced unionism. End of story. Isn't that right narsbars?