If passed, the EFCA will increase the power of unions in the workplace. Here’s a rundown of its main provisions:

1. Card check authorization – Under the EFCA, unions can be approved as long as more than 50% of employees sign authorization cards. In other words, no more secret ballots — some say that might allow employees to be bullied by union representatives.
2. Mandatory arbitration – If a union is certified through a card check, employers will have 10 days to start bargaining with the union. If an agreement isn’t reached in 120 days, the negotiation will be referred to a federal arbitrator who’ll decide any contract issues that still aren’t agreed on — such as pay, benefits, hours, etc. Negotiations often take more than 120 days — therefore, arbitrators will likely have greater influence under the EFCA than they currently do.
3. Increased penalties – Currently, employers are only held liable for back pay if they’re found to have unlawfully fired pro-union employees. The EFCA would add liquidated damages up to two times an employee’s back pay, as well as a $20,000 penalty if a court finds a violation was willful or repetitive.

Supporters of the EFCA are confident the bill will be successful.

Last year, the EFCA passed the House, but failed to gather 60 supporters to block the filibuster in the Senate. Some experts say the increased Democrat majority and President Obama’s influence make the bill likely to pass.

We’ll keep you posted.

Some members of Congress are already following through on one of last year’s campaign promises: making it easier to sue employers for pay discrimination.

On January 9, the House of Representatives passed two bills to fight pay bias: the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act.

Both bills were introduced last year but met resistance from Congressional Republicans and a veto threat from President Bush. President-elect Barack Obama, on the other hand, supports both measures.

Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

The Ledbetter Act would overturn a controversial Supreme Court decision from 2007. Lilly Ledbetter sued her employer, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, after learning she’d been paid less than males working in the same job.

The Court decided against her, because she missed out on the statute of limitations. The Court ruled she had to file her case within 180 days after the discriminatory decision was made — in this case, when she was hired 20 years ago.

The Ledbetter Act would give employees a new 180-day window to sue every time they get paid.

Paycheck Fairness Act

The PFA would eliminate many of the defenses employers now have when employees make pay bias claims. The biggest changes HR needs to watch for:

• Previous jobs don’t matter – Right now, companies can be off the hook for paying a man more than a woman if they show he earned more at a previous job so he was able to negotiate for a higher salary. But the PFA would only allow differences based on job-related factors, such as performance, responsibility, training, education or experience.
• No geographical differences – Under the Equal Pay Act, it’s acceptable for employees at different locations to be paid differently to account for local market conditions. But under the new law, employees would be able to sue based on a comparison with a co-worker located anywhere in the country.
• No more confidential salary info – Right now, companies can classify some salary data as confidential and discipline employees for disclosing it. Under the new law, that would be considered unlawful retaliation.
• Punitive damages – In addition to liability for back pay, companies that violate the Paycheck Fairness Act could be hit with punitive damages.

What’s next?

The bills will likely be voted on by the Senate next week, where experts say they have a good shot of passing with the increased Democratic majority. We’ll keep you posted.

The bill is similar to the version passed by a landslide in the House of Representatives in June.

There is one important change in the current version: the definition of “substantially limits” (as in, a disability must substantially limit a major life activity to get ADA protection). The House bill defined “substantially limits” as “materially restricts” — a phrase which also has no established legal meaning.

The Senate bill omits that redefinition.

Other significant overhauls of the ADA remain. Here’s what the bill will change:

• More “major life activities” — The bill gives a hefty list of examples of what’s considered a major life activity, which would expand the definition beyond what most courts have ruled. (The list of examples: “caring for oneself, performing manual tasks, seeing, hearing, eating, sleeping, walking, standing, lifting, bending, speaking, breathing, learning, reading, concentrating, thinking, communicating and working.”)
• No mitigating measures — The amendments would also reverse a Supreme Court decision that allows the consideration of “mitigating measures” — i.e., medicine or equipment that lessens an impairment — when deciding whether an employee is disabled.
• Protection for conditions in remission — If a condition is in remission, the employee will still be ADA-protected if the condition would qualify as a disability when active.

The House is expected to vote on the new version of the bill as early as September 17. President Bush will most likely sign it into law. We’ll keep you posted.

The bill was created in response to last year’s Supreme Court decision that ruled pay discrimination claims are subject to a 180-day statute of limitations beginning at the time the discriminatory pay rate was set (when the employee was hired, in most cases). It would have reset the 180-day limit to start again every time the employee gets a paycheck.

The House of Representatives had voted in favor of the bill, but Senate Democrats didn’t have enough votes to stop the Republican filibuster.

The bills supporters have said they’ll try bring it up for another vote in the near future.