Karl Rove: Let's Debate Employee Free Choice

By now we all know Karl Rove has chosen an interesting way to spend his time and pad his pockets in the wake of his disastrous time in the White House.

He has decided to continue the Bush Administration's amazingly successful work of ruining the U.S. economy, transferring massive wealth of power from workers in the middle class to the rich, eviscerating American labor law and devaluing work by governing, campaign stumping, and touring to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act.

He has spoken against the bill in Peoria, St. Louis, and Milwaukee. As we noted last week, at every stop hundreds of union workers turn out to protest Rove.

Since I am also stumping and touring for passage of the bill and since I have debated the Chamber of Commerce officials and union busters all over America; and for Fox and CNBC host I think Rove and I should debate the merit of Employee Free Choice Act. So here goes.

Karl Rove, I challenge you to debate the Employee Free Choice Act. You can pick the time and place, but you cannot limit the audience or exclude the media.

Why would I, an obscure aging union organizer, have the confidence to challenge Karl Rove, who is often called brilliant and genius when he ran the Bush White House?

Because the entire corporate, right wing campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act is a shameless lie. When held up to the light, their campaign falls apart like every great lie.

Now Rove and his ilk are great at lying. They ran the country into a ditch of lies. They lied to get into the mess of Iraq. They lied about torture. They lied about the U.S. Attorneys. They lied about labor law. They lied about workers. They lied about taxes. They lied about Abu Ghraid. They lied about the economy. They lied about the deregulation. They lied about greed.

But Rove and the right wing and Corporate America aren't so good at sustaining their lies. The Wall Street Journal, had to retract their lie that the Employee Free Choice Act would destroy elections for union representation. Even National Chamber Legislative Director, Randel Johnson, had to retract that lie in a debate with me last Friday at the Indiana University Law School.

NEWS ALERT - We will have You Tube coverage of that debate in this space in just a few days. You won't want to miss it.

So let's debate, Karl Rove. Everyone needs to know that you and the Bush Administration ran the country into a ditch with your reckless deregulation, insatiable greed, and contempt for workers. Everyone needs to know you stole from the middle class, workers, and the poor to make the rich even richer, robbing the economy of adequate consumer demand. And everyone needs to know our economy needs a huge kick start and stimulus. And that the best and most effective stimulus we could have is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act and the restoration of workers' freedom to form unions and bargain collectively for a fairer and greater share of the wealth we create.

Comments

[BillMelater]

Neither Rove nor anyone else in the GOP will debate anyone on this issue. They will only swiftboat the topic to muddle public opinion. They know they only have to confuse most of us. Their lobbyists will take care of the rest.

[tompoe]

Rove is a war criminal. Acuff needs a reality check.

[DavePalen]

This is a silly request for a debate between a labor expert and a political strategist. How about debating a management side labor specialist? It is a fact that there will be few if any elections under EFCA if it is passed as currently written. How anyone can argue that more unions will help us get out of a recession is comical. However, everyone should prepare for a long recession. Raising taxes, increasing energy costs (through global warming legislation), madating paid sick time, etc. will all help us become little Michigans everywhere. EFCA now means Recession continues.

[LeftRight]

The unions can get us out of the recession the same way that they did in the Great Depression by increasing wages.

See, here's the thing that you don't seem to understand: wages are a TINY percentage of the cost of something you buy!! On average it's less than 5%. For REALLY labor intensive products, like automobiles, it's around 10% So even if there was a 100% increase in wages, and ALL of that was passed on to consumers, they would see between 5%-10% increased costs, and 100% increased wages!!!!

[olmossy]

The problems with Unions are, they usually want better pay and working conditions for the workers, this cost money. If It cost money ,Someone UP the ladder will make LESS money. The supervisor, the plant manager, the CEO , the Share holder
the Wall Street broker, the Investment Banker, the Politician who gets the money from the Banker All of these people will not make as much money.
All of these people have much more expensive life styles to maintain than a common worker. They need to drive BMWs and drink Champainge , the worker probably drinks Bud Lite and wears plaid shirts and drives an old chevy.
So you must understand leftright, the worker just doesn't NEED as much money as the beautiful people.
Just because you little people do the heavy , sweaty dangerous work that really creates all the wealth, and then send your kid to fight in OUR Oil Wars , you allways think you deserve more money.
You should be happy you have a job.
Besides we have a slave country over in China , where people are glad to work for food.
so we really don't need you american workers.

[DUSAA-1775]

are you serious that the Unions ended the Great Depression? remember...just because you type it, doesn't make it true.

See, here's the thing that you don't seem to understand: it is not the wages that killed the US automakers, it is the health and welfare and retirement costs that led to their collapse.

[joeibt]

I'm A former union representative from the Teamsters union, with 25 years representing working people. I was the President of a large local in a union city. Please pick a real opponent to debate, and not a shill like Rove or Newt. Next you'll want to debate Joe the Plumber.

I think that EFCA is an affront to working people, and no matter how many times you repeat it, it still won't be true that EFCA doesn't remove the secret-ballot. It EFFECTIVELY does! If 50% plus one employees sign a union card, based on true or untrue representations made by a union organizer (read salesman), there will NOT be a secret-ballot election, no matter if 100% of those same employees request one. Yes, it's POSSIBLE that unions who cant get the last few people to sign (to get to 50%) might then request a secret-ballot election, but isn't it also likely that they'll just try other methods to simply get those cards signed? Like intimidation? or forgery? Isn't that the path of least resistance? Don't you at least think it's possible??

I can't believe that the union that I grew up believing in, and helped fight these wars for working people are espousing taking away the rights of working people in this fashion.

Why not debate someone with real knowledge of this law, who can offer the truth about Card-check, and mandatory arbitration?

Why not debate me?

[LeftRight]

If 50% plus one of the employees want to sign a union card, then obviously a majority would like to join a union. Since you cannot seem to wrap your mind around that, think about this:

Since 1824 we have had a nationwide popular vote for President. Since that time there have been 4 times where the President had FEWER votes than his opponent. There have also been 18 times where the President has been chosen without a majority of the votes. This is out of 38 Presidents since that time....

Then there's the minor little fact that there have been six decades of records kept of intimidation complaints against unions and employers. In those six decades there have been exactly FORTY-TWO complaints of union intimidation. By contrast, in just one year, 2006, there were TWENTY-SEVEN THOUSAND COMPLAINTS of employer intimidation!!!

Even if both of those numbers are off by an order of magnitude, that's STILL only 7 complaints against unions every year, and 7 complaints against employers EVERY DAY!!!!

[JRsNana]

Well, since you seem to subscribe to the same lies that Karl Rove is out pitching, why not debate you indeed? You are under the influence of Rove and his diatribe so you'd actually be perfect for the job.

[joeibt]

I guess Stewarts answer is "NO"
only 7.5 % of the private sector is in a union. That means that many people who are asked if they want to join one or sign a card have no idea what a union does or how it works. Under EFCA, this decision will be made with the only available information coming from someone who is selling the prospect of unions and making their living on this basis.

If 50% plus one person makes this decision, there will NOT be a secret-ballot election with the employees getting the rest of the story.

Do employers try to intimidate them? Some do! Do unions try to intimidate them? Yes, some do. Isn't that the argument FOR a secret ballot election. Unions win 66% of these elections, and the median time for such an election is less than 42 days as per the NLRB.

EFCA is an affront to workers, and a bailout for unions.

[EFCANOW]

TAG TEAM MATCH

Stewart Lets Make This a Tag Team Match Stewart Acuff and EFCANOW vs. Karl Rove & Newt Gingrich.

Stewart Acuff : " Karl Rove, I challenge you to debate the Employee Free Choice Act. You can pick the time and place, but you cannot limit the audience or exclude the media."

EFCANOW : Newt Gingrich. I challenge you to debate the Employee Free Choice Act. You can pick the time and place, but you cannot limit the audience or exclude the media."


Gingrich Threatens EFCA Twitterer With Lawsuit, Doesn't Understand Twitter TPMDC - ‎May 19, 2009‎

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/gingrich-threatens-efca-twitterer-with-lawsuit-doesnt-understand-twitter.php

Newt Gingrich Threatens EFCA BLOGGER Twitter abuse
Florida Times-Union - ‎May 17, 2009‎
and former Michigan Republican Party Chair Saul Anuzis have threatened to sue a pro-Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) group over a posting on Twitter using

I Think I Pissed Off Newt Gingrich - Newt Gingrich Twitter

EFCA ... http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2009/05/39353.php


Gingrich Threatens EFCA Twitterer With Lawsuit, Doesn't Understand Twitter

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/gingrich-threatens-efca-twitterer-with-lawsuit-doesnt-understand-twitter.php

Newt Gingrich Twitter Cease and Desist Letter

http://www.thetruthaboutefca.org/3648_001.pdf

[LeftRight]

He'll never debate you because he knows that he will lose, every time!