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

As noted earlier, Arkansas was the latest battleground for the Employee Free Choice Act. Sparked by a small rally by union activists, a local news station ran a story on the issue, interviewing ABC National Legislative Committee Chairman Bruce Cross to explain the problems with the bill.

The esoteric world of labor-law watching will no doubt be aflutter this morning over news that the well-respected Gallup organization has poll results suggesting a majority of Americans theoretically support making it easier to join a union. What’s that, you say, a majority of Americans support a bill that would effectively kill secret ballot elections for employees, impose government arbitrators on small businesses, and lead to hundreds of thousands of jobs lost? Actually, no.

Gallup found that 53 percent of Americans would favor a law making it easier to form unions. Remember, Gallup has found that most Americans say they approve of unions while at the same time two-thirds do not want unions to have more influence than they currently have. Translation: Americans support principles of helping workers (which is good) while being dubious of specifics pushed by organized labor (which is a good thing).

And there’s more to the poll results that does not bode well for EFCA:

• The poll wasn’t about the specifics of EFCA, meaning that no one was asked about secret ballots. Gallup notes,
  

• Pennsylvania’s Patriot-News editorializes: EFCA “fails to offer secret ballot for all workers”
• … but … “Pa. labor keeps pressure on Specter on card check”
• Investor website: Card Check Law Would Kill Retail
• “Good question: What
  

• Point of Law has an extensive roundup from Sunday to check out.
• Virginia paper editorial: “Card check bill turns government into a circus”
• Oklahoman editorial: “
  

Associated Builders and Contractors CEO Kirk Pickerel wrote an op-ed in this morning’s Washington DC Examiner highlighting the problems with the Employee Free Choice Act, including the negative consequences it will have for American jobs:

A recently released study from noted economist Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar found the Employee Free Choice Act will result in

Associated Builders and Contractors is keeping up the pressure against the Employee Free Choice Act. This morning, 2009 National Chairman Jerry Gorski was quoted in the Washington Post and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about the dangers to our economy from this anti-democratic bill.

The Washington Post, running a lengthy article capping the week of the bill’s introduction, carries ABC’s perspective (as well as including information on job-loss from the ABC-sponsored Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs):

The bill’s opponents go on to say that expanding union membership via “card check” would reverse a natural trend when business can least afford it. “It’s very clear that things have changed from the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, and we need to change, as well,” said Pennsylvania building contractor Jerry Gorski, the national chairman of the Associated Builders and Contractors. “Just to go back to the old ways and say unions get a certain amount of pay is not a help to our society.”

Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the consulting firm LECG who produced a study predicting job losses if the bill passes, said in a conference call organized by employers that increased productivity had not resulted in larger wage gains in recent decades because the growth was mostly the result of technology. “If the productivity of labor went up, then the wages of labor would go up,” she said.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was hot on the trail of whether or not union officials are trying to buy the support of Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter with the promise to help him in his upcoming re-election bid. The paper reports:

Still, it’s important to remember that 2010′s primary and general elections are still a year or more away — and a lot can happen in a year.

Indeed, Jerry Gorski, head of the Associated Builders and Contractors Association, and owner of an engineering firm in Montgomery County, acknowledged as much.

While he is strongly opposed to the bill, “I am not going to make up my mind on whether to vote for Mr. Specter only on this one issue,” he said.

See more of Gorski’s statement on the matter here.

UPDATE: The Washington Times quotes Gorski today.