thetruthaboutefca.com | The Truth About The Employee Free Choice Act & Card Check

Much talk of late has revolved around potential compromise on the Employee Free Choice Act. Associated Builders and Contractors, as well as the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace and others, have strongly said there is no compromise on the bill. That said, one idea that has been floated is a “quickie election” to meet the (unfounded) concern that the current elections process is too long.

Today, the Heritage Foundation’s James Sherk released a new analysis explaining why a “quickie election” doesn’t actually help employees:

Snap elections would allow EFCA supporters to claim they preserve the secret ballot–the loss of which is EFCA’s most controversial component. Secret ballot elections exist to protect voters’ right to make an informed, private choice free of intimidation and pressure and with the time to sort out misinformation from facts. Snap elections preserve the secret ballot in name only, because they compromise the election process: While the direct process of casting a vote in snap elections still occurs in private, with only a few days to hear both sides of the issue, employees are deprived of the ability to make an informed choice when they vote.

With regard to their ability to make an independent, informed choice on union organization, snap elections are no better than card check.

Read the entire article – it’s important.

As Associated Builders and Contractors has been warning its members and allies in the fight against the anti-democratic, anti-jobs legislation laughingly known as the Employee Free Choice Act, the fight is not over. Despite some setbacks for organized labor’s lobbying machine, the fight is still on. ABC’s Geoff Burr took that message to readers of Investors Business Daily, which reports:

Others on the anti-card-check side, like Geoff Burr, a lobbyist with Associated Builders and Contractors, aren’t so sure that it won’t come up later this year. Labor may want a vote to see which lawmakers it needs to focus on.

“Even if it fails on the floor by one or two votes, it is something labor can use to try to motivate their forces for 2010,” Burr said.

Yet another recent editorial against the Employee Free Choice Act comes from the Columbus Dispatch:

The Democratic-controlled House is expected to approve the measure, but Senate Democrats need at least one Republican to reach 60 votes, the number needed to overcome an expected GOP filibuster this summer. Democrats weren’t surprised by Ohio GOP Sen. George V. Voinovich’s comments on Tuesday against the bill, but they were surprised that Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who sometimes votes with labor, also opposes the measure.

If Senate Republicans hold firm, they’ll do President Barack Obama a favor, although he is unlikely to admit that publicly.

Obama’s economic advisers are struggling to find ways to rev up the economy; the last thing they need is a federal law making workplaces easier to unionize and reducing those businesses’ ability to compete in a global marketplace.

Yesterday, California’s Chico Enterprise newspaper added its concern over the Employee Free Choice, arguing:

Labor, after its impressive fundraising for the Democratic Party, must feel emboldened. But if unions truly believe in their cause, they wouldn’t need to eliminate fair elections. And our economy certainly doesn’t need mandatory government intrusion into private labor disputes.

For those reasons, we hope the Employee Free Choice Act vanishes for good.

Interestingly, the paper took special note of EFCA’s binding arbitration provision:

Not only is this practice unreasonable and potentially rife for intimidation, there are no regulations or safeguards to determine what authorization cards can look like or say not the language nor the size of the small print on the card. The card only needs to contain a single ambiguous line somewhere on it that authorizes a union to represent the worker.

But by far the most economically destructive provision in the Employee Free Choice Act is one that imposes binding arbitration if the parties fail to reach agreement within 90 days.

The Evansville Courier & Press from Indiana has become the latest paper to editorialize against the Employee Free Choice Act, warning:

A Courier & Press story published Monday reported that the Service Employees International Union has launched an effort in Evansville

Hollywood has its own labor problems, but maybe they will take a break as they attempt to ship a little bit of Tinseltown to the nation’s capital. Former West Wing actors Martin Sheen, Bradley Whtiford (who is on the board of directors for the union group that continues to mislead the public on card check), and Richard Schiff will be making an appearance in support of the Employee Free Choice Act today.

It’s yet another reminder that while serious political leaders like Sen. Arlen Specter do not support EFCA, union lobbyists have not given up. And while they have not been able to call in the big guns, they have managed to wrangle a few actors who used to play serious politicians. The fat lady has not yet sung on this drama.

UPDATE: “If it