Look Around HR

The Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, who oppose the labor backed Employee Free Choice Act, released a 30 second commercial they will begin to run in hopes of influencing public opinion- and political candidates- on this one issue.

The essential effect of this legislation is it will take away the right of employees to cast a secret ballot when deciding union membership. With the “card check,” you just need a majority to sign a card; with those names public to the employer, other employees, and union bosses.

The Heritage Foundation has written a number of essays on this subject in opposition to the dangerous bill. Here is a sample from James Sherk (with Heritage):

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would disenfranchise 105 million American workers. For union organizing elections, the legislation would replace the secret ballot with a system of “card checks,” where union organizers pressure workers to publicly sign a card stating they want to join a union. Workers would never have the option of voting against union membership, and millions of workers could be forced into a union without ever getting the chance to vote on the matter. Congress should preserve a worker’s right to vote in privacy on union membership.

When it gets down to it, I’ll call a spade a spade- this is the Democrats thank you letter to the labor unions who helped drive them to power in 2006 and now want some reward for their hard work.

Anyway, check out the ad. It’s a good one…

Wal-Mart recently found themselves on the negative side of a PR war, once again. In this case, they attempted to collect over $400,000 that a former employee had won in a lawsuit following a traffic accident that left her in a nursing home with severe brain damage.

Wal-Mart, like many other places of employment, has a policy that allows them to recoup lawsuit winnings to pay for the health care expenses. And I should add that this policy is not that rare and exclusive to the world’s largest retailer.

From the WSJ:

Insurance experts say it is increasingly common for health plans to seek reimbursement for the medical expenses they paid for someone’s treatment if the person also collects damages in an injury suit. The practice, called “subrogation,” has increased since a 2006 Supreme Court ruling that eased it.

After this story made it across the newswires, Wal-Mart retracted on their policy in this case and decided not to go after the money. It will be interesting to see if there is any more fallout from this.