We learn from today’s news conference marking the introduction of the Employee Free Choice Act that the Senate version has 40 cosponsors — that’s compared to 46 in the 110th Congress. The House version now has 223 cosponsors, versus 233 original cosponsors last go around. And, as the EFCA Report blog notes, obstensibly pro-union Democrats made major gains in both the Senate and House in the last election.

Here’s the news release as posted at the website of Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, “U.S. Senate and House Introduce Employee Free Choice Act”: 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Leading members of the U.S. Senate and House today introduced legislation that would help enable workers to bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions by restoring their rights to form unions.

“The current crisis has shown us the dangers of an economy that leaves working families behind. The people who work in our factories, build our roads, and care for our children are the backbone of this great nation. The Employee Free Choice Act will give these hardworking men and women a greater voice in the decisions that affect their families and their futures. It’s a critical step toward putting our economy back on track, and I hope that we can act quickly to send it to the President’s desk,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA), chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

“Just as the National Labor Relations Act, the 40 hour week and the minimum wage helped to pull us out of the Great Depression and into a period of unprecedented prosperity, so too will the Employee Free Choice Act help reinvigorate our economy,” said Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.  “Today is one of those defining moments in history as we introduce legislation that puts power back into the hands of the people who are truly the backbone of this economy.”

“Americans’ wages have been stagnating or falling for the past decade. For far too long, we have seen corporate CEOs take care of themselves and shareholders at the expense of workers,” said U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “If we want a fair and sustainable recovery from this economic crisis, we must give workers the ability to stand up for themselves and once again share in the prosperity they help to create.”

Etc.

Senator Kennedy, ill with cancer, was not at the news conference or the Senate committee hearing that preceded the media event.

It’s a trillion-dollar historic week here in Washington as Congress moves to pass H.R. 1, the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and President Obama moves to sign it. Will anybody be moved to read it?

Massive destimulus occurs Tuesday, as lead and phthalate standards go into effect under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.

President Obama travels today to Elkhart, Indiana, to sell the stimulus before holding a prime time news conference tonight. Tomorrow it’s Fort Meyers, Florida, stimulatingly. Also tomorrow, Treasury Secretary Geithner unveils the second stage of financial rescue, the TARPII announcement originally scheduled for Monday.

The Senate returns to H.R. 1 at approximately 1 p.m., with a cloture vote scheduled on the Collins-Nelson “compromise” amendment for 5:30 p.m. Leadership hopes to have a final vote Tuesday. (Courtesy of MichelleMalkin.com, here’s the text of the substitute.) For more of the week’s schedule, see the Daily Digest.

The House convenes at 2 p.m. today. The year’s work of hailing commemorative saluting has begun again, and after that and the suspension calendar, the two big bills of the week are S. 22, the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, and the stimulus bill, H.R. 1, in whatever form it takes. For the Majority Leader’s floor schedule for the week, go here.

The week’s full schedule of hearings is available in the Congressional Record.

Senate Hearings: The Banking Committee holds an oversight hearing Tuesday on financial rescue legislation, including “a new plan” for TARP. Treasury Secretary Geithner testifies. The Budget Committee examines issues and budget options for health reform Tuesday; on Wednesday, the committee examines “policies to address the crises in financial and housing markets.” On Tuesday, Senate Energy and Natural Resources examines a renewable electricity standards proposal.  On Thursday, the committee reviews the DOE Loan Guarantee Program and clean energy technologies. The Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday considers increased fraud enforcement in the wake of the economic downturn.

House Hearings:The full House Education and Labor Committee on Thursday holds a hearing, “Examining Workers’ Rights and Violence Against Labor Union Leaders in Colombia,” signaling something about the U.S.-Colombia FTA. A subcommittee that afternoon holds a hearing, “New Innovations and Best Practices, Under the Workforce Investment Act.” The Energy and Commerce subcommittee on energy and environment holds a hearing, “The Climate Challenge: National Security Threats and Economic Opportunities.” Financial Services on Tuesday examines the “Extraordinary Efforts by the Federal Reserve Bank to Provide Liquidity in the Current Financial Crisis,” with Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testifying. On Wednesday, the committee follows with “TARP Accountability: Use of Federal Assistance by the First TARP Recipients.” The Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday, an oversight hearing, “Offshore Drilling: Environmental and Commercial Perspectives.” Its subcommittee on energy and mineral resources holds a hearing Thursday on H.R. 493, Coal Ash Reclamation, Environment, and Safety Act. The week also sees two House Science and Technology Committee hearings of interest: The full committee on Wednesday on the recycling of electronic waste; on Thursday, it’s a subcommittee overview of transportation R&D.

Executive Branch: It’s a busy week for Treasury Secretary Geithner: On Tuesday he unveils the next financial stability plan and testifies on TARP before Senate Banking; on Wednesday he testifies before Senate Budget; on Saturday, he speaks at the G-7 Meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in Rome.

Away from all this history — history. The bicentennial of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth is Thursday, February 12.

The Washington Auto Show rolls into town this week, taking over the downtown Convention Center for exhibits, policy discussions, roll-outs and marketing.

The official site of the show is www.WashingtonAutoShow.com.

Today is on Capitol Hill is the “Green Car Summit: Defining the Road Ahead.”

“Vehicles offering dramatically improved environmental performance are crucial to helping us move beyond today’s challenges of oil dependence and growing environmental impacts,” says Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of the Green Car Journal and editor of GreenCar.com. “While not yet widely available in new car showrooms, these vehicles each inspire in important ways with their advanced power trains, use of cleaner or more sustainable fuels, vastly improved efficiencies, or a combination of these attributes.” The award-winning Green Car Journal has focused on the intersection of automobiles, energy, and environment since its launch in 1992. As part of its mission, the magazine hosts events, produces ride-and-drives of advanced and clean fuel vehicles, and conducts various outreach efforts to educate consumers on better and more environmentally positive vehicle choices. 

The theme is continued throughout the show, highlighted at the Green Car Pavilion.

Vehicles on display achieve their high levels of efficiency with the use of advanced technologies ranging from gasoline-electric hybrid engines, plug-in hybrid powertrains, and hydrogen fuel cells to more conventional clean diesel and advanced gasoline engines. Among the more high-profile vehicles on hand will be the Chevrolet Equinox Fuel Cell, GM’s hydrogen crossover demonstration vehicle that captured last year’s Green Car Vision Award™, and the clean diesel VW Jetta TDI, recently honored as Green Car Journal’s 2009 Green Car of the Year®. Other exciting vehicles at the Pavilion will be ones running on battery electric power, E85 ethanol, compressed natural gas, and other alternative fuels.

Tuesday is Public Policy Day. We’ll be there.

SAE International formerly known as Society of Automotive Engineers and the Washington Auto Show (WAS) will co-locate the 2009 SAE Government/Industry Meeting with the Washington Auto Show. SAE’s plenary session, “Roadmap for the 44th President and 111th Congress,” will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. on Public Policy Day, February 2 and 3, an event unique to the WAS because of the show’s location at the seat of power. Public Policy Day – Open to Credentialed Media, February 3, opens with the Mazda-hosted breakfast and includes a full-day of manufacturer introductions and policy announcements. Additionally, The Green Car Journal will present the Green Car Vision Award. 

Tuesday also feature a salute to Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the veteran legislator and fierce advocate for a strong domestic auto industry.

The Washington Post had a good, basic review of the political/policy/economic issues on display this week, “Carmakers Drive Their Best Case To the Nation’s Seat of Power.”

As said, we’ll be there and plan to blog.

Following up on the post noting that the Human Rights Watch contends that passage of the Employee Free Choice Act is a human rights imperative.

In 2005, Human Rights Watch wrote a letter to the Mexican Chamber of Deputies, opposing a labor reform proposed by then President Vincente Fox. Here’s a key excerpt, as posted under the headline, “Mexico: Fox’s Labor Reform Proposal Would Deal Serious Blow to Workers’ Rights”:

Secret Ballots in Union Elections Undermined
In Mexico, trade union elections to supplant pre-existing unions are often open ballot elections. Workers must publicly declare their union preference in the presence of numerous employer and non-independent union representatives and even, on occasion, hostile hired thugs. Intimidation by these parties has frequently prevented free and fair elections. Mexico has recognized this problem, and in its May 18, 2000, joint declaration with the United States under the NAALC, the government agreed to “promote the use of . . . secret ballot elections in disputes over the right to hold the collective bargaining contract.”

On its face, the Abascal Project addresses this issue. It would amend current law to require that elections to oust pre-existing unions occur only by secret ballot. In practice, however, the new procedural requirements that independent union supporters must fulfill prior to such an election would undermine, if not entirely negate, any benefits of a secret vote.

As discussed, under the Abascal Project, an election to gain workplace representational rights could only occur after workers supporting the vote presented to the relevant Board the requisite legal documents and papers containing their names and signatures. As noted, these requirements would be virtually impossible to meet. As a result, workers would rarely, if ever, get to enjoy their new right to a secret ballot election.

Human Rights Watch stood up for the rights of employees to organize via secret-ballot elections — in Mexico. But in the United States, eliminating secret ballots is a “human rights imperative.”

Hypocrites.

Quin Hillyer at the Examiner/D.C. looks outside the Beltway and finds tort reform an issue motivating legislatures and governors concerned with justice and economic growth. From “Class-action lawsuit reform progresses in states“:

While lawmakers in the nation’s capital do back flips kowtowing to plaintiffs’ lawyers who heavily finance their campaigns, individual states continue to move in the opposite direction to rein in lawsuit abuse by the plaintiffs’ bar.

States repeatedly have found that reasonable limits on lawsuits help boost their economies and/or health-care systems, whereas unfettered jackpot justice is seriously detrimental.

Hillyer identifies Hawaii, Georgia, Oregon and Wyoming as states where the action is, with Hawaii and Wyoming being especially concerned about medical malpractice laws. We’d add Oklahoma to the list, as well, where Sen. Glenn Coffee, president pro tem of the state Senate, has made tort reform a priority. Gov. Brad Henry, who campaigned in support of civil justice reform, vetoed a business-supported measure last year, but the political tides are moving against him.

Gov. Sonny Perdue’s efforts in Georgia are particularly interesting, as he attempts to introduce “loser pays” into the early stages of litigation, making the filers of the most obvious of frivolous lawsuits pay the consequences if they lose.

The point of these efforts is not to stick it to the little guy, but to rein in the excesses that reward special interests — trial lawyers — while punishing doctors and entrepreneurs and taxpayers. As Hillyer points out, tort reform has succeeded in Mississippi and Alabama in keeping doctors in the state and fostering a positive economic climate.

From President-elect Obama’s Speech on the Economy, January 8.

“If we act with the urgency and seriousness that this moment requires, I know that we can do it again….
…For if we hope to end this crisis, we must end the culture of anything goes that helped create it, and this change must begin in Washington.
It’s time to trade old habits for a new spirit of responsibility. It’s time to finally change the ways of Washington so that we can set a new and better course for America.”

But old habits die so hard…

A late entry today, very late. Consider it our “Midnight Follies,” rushed through at the last minute as favor to big business John Peel’s fans.

It’s the 30th anniversary of the great, great punk-era song, Teenage Kicks by the Undertones.

Which isn’t really that funny or follies-related. But the version by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain is.

Ah, you think, how middle aged self-indulgent. And the Buzzcocks had more staying power.

But there’s an intellectual property rights angle, of great interest to manufacturers. Feargal Sharkey, the singer who defined the Undertones sound, is now a music executive in the U.K. And he’s in the news.

Former Undertones frontman Feargal Sharkey will launch a new organisation later today  (October 27th) aimed safeguarding the future of the music industry.The UK Music body will call on the government to address the problem of illegal file sharing, as well as extend the copyright term afforded to artists, which is currently limited to fifty years.

The organisation represents a wide range of music bodies, including, BPI, the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, and the Music Managers Forum.

“The thing we all realised is that we all agree with each other 95% of the time. It’s looking at where the industry is going to be three, four or five years from now,” Sharkey told the Guardian newspaper.

Wanna hold ya, wanna hold ya, wanna hold ya tight, get teenage-kicks and property rights! All right!

P.S. Wow. Everybody covers Teenage Kicks. A copyright violation?

Canada negotiates a trade deal with the European Union. China signs a free trade agreement with Singapore. Australia says the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement negotiations are its most comprehensive trade talks ever.

The EU and South Korea are also talking, the Asian Wall Street Journal observed today in an editorial, “Trading Partners.”

On the sidelines of a Europe-Asia summit this weekend, President Lee Myung-bak and European leaders Nicolas Sarkozy and Jose Manuel Barroso affirmed their commitment to finalizing a free-trade agreement this year. Negotiators still face hurdles on issues like country-of-origin rules and car imports, but both sides are optimistic about reaching a deal.

The EU is already Korea’s second-largest export destination after China, and in overall terms the EU and U.S. are almost neck-and-neck. EU-Korea trade in goods was valued at 64 billion euros ($80 billion) last year, compared to $82 billion in U.S.-Korea trade.

The irony is that Europeans started negotiating with the Koreans in May 2007 not least because the EU was afraid of losing out as Korea signed a trade pact with America. Yet that U.S. agreement is stalled in Congress as Democrats bow to their union supporters.

We’ve made the same point before (here). The United States can choose to abandon tariff-lowering negotiations unilaterally if it wants, but other countries will continue to negotiate and close deals that leave U.S. companies, manufacturers and farmers increasingly uncompetitive.

From the Financial Accounting Standards Board:

Summary of Decisions Reached – FASB Board Meeting 9-24-08

The Board decided on a plan for redeliberations of its Exposure Draft, Disclosure of Certain Loss Contingencies. The Board directed the staff to prepare an alternative model that attempts to address the concerns that certain constituents raised about the Exposure Draft. This alternative model will be field tested along with the model in the Exposure Draft. The staff expects that field testing will take place during November and December 2008, and roundtable meetings will occur in either early January or March 2009. Board redeliberations are expected to begin in late March or April 2009. The Board also decided that any final Statement on this topic will be effective no sooner than for fiscal years ending after December 15, 2009. 

FASB had proposed expanded the reporting of contingent liabilities, drawing extensive opposition from the business community. Corporations, attorneys and trade associations like the NAM protested the possibility that publically traded corporations would have to detail the potential costs of litigation, arguing that  the information could benefit trial lawyers suing the companies, violate attorney-client privilege and in the end would be so speculative as to not serve investors.

The 239 comments submitted to FASB were overwhelmingly negative, with only organized labor and “socially conscious” investors expressing support. The NAM comment letter is available here, in which the association calls on FASB to delay implementation of the new reporting standard and instead work through the issues one more time.

FASB has other issues before it that are more pressing. Since that letter, the financial crisis has exploded, raising the stakes for corporate reporting and audits. This is certainly not the time to be imposing new and potentially damaging reporting requirements.

Apparently the FASB agrees, hence the board’s decision Wednesday. A good decision.

• Earlier posts on the issue can be read here. 
• CFO Magazine has a good piece on FASB’s announcement here, “FASB Delays Lawsuit Disclosures.”
• The American Bar Association last week sent a letter reiterating its call for a delay.
• The U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a news release applauding FASB’s decision. 

He’s still at it, is Roy Pearson, the erstwhile D.C. Administrative Judge whose legal harassment of his drycleaners came to represent the worst excesses of American litigitiousness. The phrase, “$54 million pants lawsuit,” is now a generally recognized term; the Chungs are a legitimate cause celebre as small business-owners driven almost to financial ruin because of Pearson’s lawsuit.

Pearson is seeking to expand his reputation for obsessive litigating to the world of employment law, appealing a D.C. city panel’s decision to not reappoint him to his judicial post. From News Channel 8:

A former Judge who lost a $54 million lawsuit against a dry cleaners over a missing pair of pants is suing to get his job back and $1 million in damages.

Roy Pearson filed the suit in Federal Court, claiming he was wrongfully dismissed for exposing corruption within the Office of Administration Hearings where he worked as an administrative judge. Pearson said he was protected as a whistle-blower and that the city used the fact that he was being “vilified in the media” to cut him out of his job. (Update: Turns out appeal was filed in May.)

In other Pearson-related legal news, the D.C. Court of Appeals has released its October calendar and Pearson will soon make oral arguments in his appeal, challenging the Superior Court’s dismissal of his lawsuit against the drycleaners, the Chungs.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 9:30 a.m.
No. 07-CV-872 Roy L. Pearson v. Soo Chung, et al.
Roy L. Pearson, Pro Se
Christopher C. S. Manning, Esquire

Pro Se? Well of course. (Manning is the Chungs’ attorney.)

UPDATE: Manning comments, via ABC News 7 (a better story): “Now, a year later, we have a new mountain forming — all in relation to one pair of pants,” said Chris Manning, the Chungs’ attorney. “We are hoping that we are victorious in appeal, but the important thing to take away is that no one wins, everyone loses in a case like this.”

UPDATE (Thursday 1:10 p.m.): To get a good sense of how much court and lawyer time expended because  Pearson’s obsessiveness, take a look at the docket from D.C. Superior Court in the suit, Pearson v. Chung.