The 2010 open seat U.S. Senate race in Missouri is starting to heat up. Congressman Roy Blunt (r – lobbyists) has taken to scolding Robin Carnahan via Twitter posts for supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

Roy Blunt:

I see Robin Carnahan’s spokesman finally admits Robin Carnahan wants to abolish the secret ballot to form a union. about 13 hours ago from mobile web

Uh, nice hyperbole Roy. Never let facts get in the way of republican talking points, eh? EFCA gives the choice to the workers, not their employers.

Roy Blunt:

I support freedom for workers with federally-supervised secret ballot elections and democracy on the job. about 13 hours ago from mobile web

You mean like this?:

…Last June, the 230 workers at nine newspapers voted for representation by the California Media Workers Guild, which was working with CWA in a “One Big Bang” campaign. Just two weeks later, 29 workers were fired, two-thirds of them union supporters. Steffens, an award-winning reporter at the Contra Costa Times, was among them.

Management claimed layoffs “weren’t based on seniority or merit or skills, that they were just taking positions that they didn’t need or couldn’t afford anymore,” Steffens said. No one who opposed union representation was let go.

The regional National Labor Relations Board sided with MediaNews, claiming there was no proof that the company had targeted union supporters. The case has been appealed to the NLRB in Washington, D.C.

The company clearly knew who the union activists were, and was pretty sure how most people were voting, Steffens said. The captive audience meetings gave managers plenty of clues and they demanded information from lower-level editors.

That makes the claims of Employee Free Choice Act opponents that unions want to take away secret ballot elections especially galling, Steffens said. “That just kills me, the idea that all these companies are trying to protect our rights,” she said. “We had a manager who admitted that he was being asked for daily counts of where everyone he supervised stood. How is that a secret ballot?…”

[emphasis added]

Roy Blunt:

Robin Carnahan wants less freedom for workers with a system where workers can be coerced to sign a card to form a union. about 13 hours ago from mobile web

And how many instances of that over the last, say, seventy years? As opposed to employer coercion? Sean McGarvey, Secretary-Treasurer Building and Construction Trades Department AFL-CIO:

…The Employee Free Choice Act doesn’t take away secret ballots [voice: “Right!”] Doesn’t intimidate anybody. [voice: “Right!”] Stewart Acuff, who is a friend of Teresa [Hensley] and her husband [Kenny Hensley], husband’s college buddy, is the organizing director for the AFL-CIO. And when you hear people talk about union thugs intimidating people in organizing drives in order to get them to sign cards [voice: “Liars!”] [laughter] It’s worse than that. [laughter] They have no idea how an organizing drive works. Organizers don’t all of a sudden arrive at a door and decide to organize a company. It’s the employees of that company that decide that they’re not likin’ the way things are goin’ and they want to have an opportunity to come together and collectively bargain instead of collectively beg with their boss. And they reach out, then activists inside that company reach out for the union and ask for assistance. And that’s what we lend. Technical assistance. Money and expertise. There’s no intimidation.

And as Stewart said on Fox News, I told Teresa, and don’t quote me on the exact number, but since 1937 there have been a hundred and thirty cases of documented intimidation by an organizer in a union drive having to do with having workers sign up for the union. In seventy some years. Last year there were thirty thousand cases of employer intimidation in organizing drives. [applause] In one year…[applause]

[emphasis added]

So, where does Roy Blunt’s point of view come from?:

EFCA’s Opponents Received Millions Upon Millions From Business PACs

…some of the legislation’s chief opponents in Congress have received millions upon millions of dollars from business interests over the course of their careers, and only a pittance from labor. This includes the top ranks of the Republican Party.

After the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced on Tuesday, Danny Diaz, a Republican operative working against the legislation’s passage, sent to reporters a compilation of quotes attacking the union-backed measure. Below are the names of the officials quoted with a list of the amount of money they’ve received from business and labor political action committees…

…To be sure, not all business groups are actively engaged in the EFCA fight. Some, though relatively few, are comfortable with the legislation’s passage. Moreover, there is a far deeper pool of business PACs willing to donate to politicians than labor ones. But this line of attack only adds to the notion that the business community is bringing more financial clout to the fight. Indeed, the Chamber of Commerce — the leading force behind killing EFCA in Congress — spent more on lobbying in 2008 than all labor unions combined…

[emphasis added]

Really? The Chamber of Commerce? “I’m shocked, shocked …”:

FRIENDS OF ROY BLUNT

…CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PAC (US CHAMBER PAC) 06/19/2002 1000.00 22991453216

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PAC (US CHAMBER PAC) 06/20/2007 1500.00 27990320144

CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA PAC (US CHAMBER PAC) 06/06/2008 1000.00 28991512681…

…NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 10/16/1997 500.00 97032512069

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 08/12/1998 1000.00 98033562339

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 11/04/1999 1000.00 99034960457

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 12/16/1999 1000.00 20035143891

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 05/11/2000 2000.00 20035673578

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 08/17/2000 1000.00 20036053894

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 09/17/2001 1000.00 21990532230

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 03/14/2002 2000.00 22990787105

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 05/29/2002 2000.00 22991138786

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 08/22/2002 1000.00 22991865347

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 10/04/2002 1000.00 22992452249

NATI
ONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 03/18/2003 1500.00 23990787772

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 09/16/2003 1000.00 23992201314

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 03/09/2004 2500.00 24990970475

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 08/05/2004 3000.00 24971475132

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 06/14/2005 2500.00 25970652801

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 03/23/2006 2500.00 26950084318

NATIONAL FEDERATION OF INDEPENDENT BUSINESS/ SAVE AMERICAS FREE ENTERPRISE TRUST 05/31/2007 2500.00 27931509728…

Huh, NFIB, good friends of Roy Blunt that they are, appear to be adamantly against EFCA, too. I wonder why?