As the title of this post asks....if you knew that a $100 would guarantee the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, would you donate $100 (or any amount for that matter) right now? Would you tell all your friends?
Well that is reality!! (If you don't need a brief description of the EFCA, follow below the fold to find out how)
For those of you who would like a little better education, the EFCA would serve America by:
* Establishing stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiations.
* Providing mediation and arbitration for first-contract disputes.
* Allowing employees to form unions by signing cards authorizing union representation.
There are plenty of diaries on this site about the benefits of passing this amazing bill but I wanted to emphasize just how close we are to making it law and why it hasn't happened yet.
In 2007, the new Democratic controlled House passed the EFCA and sent over to the Senate. The Senate voted 51-48 in favor of cloture, but of course you need 60 votes to break a filibuster and Bush had already promised to veto (meaning we would need a 2/3 majority). Take a look at the roll call vote here.
With an Obama victory the threat of veto disappears and the Bill will gain the full support of the White House. This leads us to focus instead on the Senate.
Both independents (and I use that term lightly for Lieberman) voted in favor of cloture. All 48 voting Democrats voted in favor of cloture (Tim Johnson was still unable to work at the time). 1 Republican (Arlen Specter) voted in favor of cloture. 48 Republicans filibustered, successfully preventing the most ambitious advance in workers rights and economic reform in decades. We were 9 votes short of cloture.
With Tim Johnson since returning to the senate (and presumably Kennedy will be well enough to vote as well next year) and Arlen Specter remaining in the senate and under pressure of election in 2010, we find ourselves 8 votes short of cloture!
It is true that we would need to pick up 9 votes for a filibuster proof majority in the Senate (and 10 for a Lieberman/filibuster proof majority) BUT we only need 8 for the EFCA to pass!
According to electoral-vote.com and fivethirtyeight.com we are currently almost guaranteed at least a 6 seat pick-up in the Senate (Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire, Oregon, North Carolina). This leaves us a mere 2 seats short of the change we NEED.
The two most likely pick-ups not already mentioned are Begich in Alaska and Al Franken in Minnesota. Sen. Stevens in Alaska is currently mired in a corruption trial with some pretty damning evidence leveled against him (As a second year law student currently taking evidence, my expertise on this topic is not yet truly honed, but I like to think I have a pretty good idea). The results of the trial should come out soon and could likely crush his re-election bid. Because I am pretty confident we will win in Alaska this leaves us only 1 seat short of the votes necessary to break a filibuster and pass the EFCA!
So the remaining seat to battle for is Minnesota. Al Franken is a STRONG supporter of the EFCA. Let's all donate $100 right now to his campaign!! His campaign website has the following quote:
Not only will I vote for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), I’ll proudly co-sponsor it. This bill would make it easier for employees who want to organize to do so without harassment or intimidation, and would reform a labor relations system currently dominated by corporate interests.
Polls have shown this race ALL OVER THE PLACE and the best guess is that it is neck and neck.
How can you ask for anymore than that? If a million people look at DailyKos everyday, and only 1% of them saw this diary, that would be 10,000 people....if only 1/10 of you donated $100 that would rack up $100,000 in one day! I'm not a math whiz otherwise I'd work out all sorts of other possibilities but I love the power of this community and I believe that if everybody did what they could we could make a big enough one day haul to put one more ad on tv, make just enough more phone calls and literature drops, make a few more crucial voter contacts in Minnesota or buy just enough additional campaign gear to push this election over the top.
Folks, this is it. Crunch time. It's just you and the Employee Free Choice Act struggling to get to its feet. If you could give $100 and you knew that would get up....would you? Prove it.