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

Over at the website of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, F. Vincent Vernuccio writes a primer on the Employee Free Choice Act’s frustrating arbitration provision. The abstract reads:

In the ongoing debate over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 1409, S 560), the Act

We came across this great post by Warner Todd Huston over at Publiusforum.com and couldn’t sum it up better ourselves:

Of course we

Another great one from the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, of which Associated Builders and Contractors is a member.

The Los Angeles Times has an eye-opening story this morning: “SEIU borrows business’ anti-union tactics to fend off a rival.” It seems now that an upstart rival (actually, a group that has broken away from SEIU because it believes the union doesn’t represent members well) has tried to take existing SEIU members and get them into a new organization. And it also seems that SEIU is fighting aggressively to avoid letting that happen — even using the same kind of — completely legal — tactics that employers can use to protect their rights.

The tactics SEIU is using — filing a bunch of complaints to the National Labor Relations Board, educating employees/members, spending a ton of money, etc — are not unethical. They are just hypocritical. That’s because the SEIU is a leading proponent of gaining new members without letting them vote via the Employee Free Choice Act, but when it comes to something as important as the future of their dues-paying membership, they demand an election.

It’s especially noteworthy that SEIU’s use of their rights before the National Labor Relations Board are drawing this fire from their rival:

“The average election is scheduled in 60 days, and nothing has been scheduled here,” Rosselli said, noting that many of the signed petitions were filed in February.

It’s true in spirit that elections are held quickly — though most are held even faster than 60 days. Again, SEIU has every right to use the law but it’s obscene that they are demanding an end to employers’ very same rights.

Finally, note that this hypocrisy over the election phase isn’t the only embarrassing turn for SEIU, whose leader has ridiculously called for binding arbitration in ways no union or employer should ever endorse.

Be sure to read all of Mark McKinnon’s argument over at Hotline’s ON CALL:

Union bosses are attempting to equate the binding interest arbitration provision with other types of arbitration, such as arbitration used in privately resolving disputes. These two types of arbitration are not created equal and comparing the two is intellectually dishonest.

When arbitration is used in resolving disputes the arbitrator serves as a judge, interpreting existing contracts that parties have previously agreed to.

EFCA hands the final decision of any business contract to a government arbitrator, who would draft and finalize the contract rather than simply interpret the provisions agreed upon by both parties. Instead of serving as a judge, the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act makes the arbitrator a dictator of sorts, imposing his will on the parties without their consent.

We have received a message from a longtime union member — a carpenter with the Chicago Regional Council of Carpenters for more than two decades — who says the Employee Free Choice Act “would be a big mistake.” The writer, whose name we have withheld, writes:

Currently there are about 43,000 members in the CRC, down from a high of 48,000 two years ago. Thats a drop of about 5,000 members in two years. Those 5,000 members who have dropped out were contributing to the pension fund, now at about $7.50 an hour. The bulk of the members who drop out are not vested in the union, and their money disappears in the pension fund. If the union is able to freely sign on new members, without providing stable employment, they will be able to increase the amount of cash flow going into the pension fund, the new member will stick around for a year or two and realize there is no steady work and move on. This also hurts the members who have been around for along time, because they also can not find steady work. Its like the purpose of the union is to keep letting herds of new members in while the majority of the existing members struggle to find work. The CRC just got a $3.50 an hour raise, a union carpenter lucky enough to have a job now earns $40.77 an hour[1 $ an hour increase], 2$ going in to the pension[now7.50$ an hour], and .67 in to health insurance[ now at $9.50 an hour]. The members did not vote on this raise, just like the members do not vote on any decisions in the union. The CRC currently has $100,660,342 in assets, while the bulk of the members who are jobless, struggling to put food on their tables are not reaping any of the benefits of belonging to a union. If one checks the dol[department of labor web page] one can view how the union is squandering away millions of dollars on the self serving union leaders. goto: http//erds.dol-esa.gov/query/getOrgQry.do use file # 001-949. Some numbers of interest from the web page; $198,000 apprentice graduation party, another $130,000 for office catering.

The CRC spends millions of dollars promoting national and local elections, encouraging members to vote. But then when they have their own election with in the union the rules change. Members are deliberately not informed about the elections. The union officials use undemocratic tactics to stay in power. All one has to do is view the records, almost all of their elections are won by acclimation [members do not participate]. [redacted to remove personally identifiable information] The union has become part of the problem, they could create more jobs if they were not charging so much money, supply and demand, but the union charges more money so more members will have to drop out and new members can be brought on board. EFCA will be a disaster for the future of the CRC, it will enable the union to get richer, while the union gets weaker.

Truly troubling stuff.