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

It wasn’t so long ago — in fact, it was only in June — that the Service Employees International Union was making its case for the troubling and horrifically misnamed Employee Free Choice Act by crowing that 155 academics had signed a letter calling on Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter to support the bill.

So professors clamoring for a law must be a pretty big deal, right? Well, even if you think so, SEIU and its allies must think so, right? Well…

The wonderful PerezStern blog has found some internal emails from SEIU and its advisers discussing how to deal with professors who have recently weigh in with concerns about how that union is interfering with another. Here are some interesting notes:

• Referring to academics, Javier Morillo of SEIU 26 wants to respond with a letter that “Shames them just a little bit for signing onto something without knowing all the facts” (no one from the employer community made such an effort when academics pushed EFCA, but that’s a different story)
• Jo-Ann Mort, a would-be adviser, says of the academic group: “most of these academics really are not worth it-but spamming them sounds like what they deserve!!”
• Michelle Ringette, a frequent flack for SEIU boss Andy Stern, wrote: “I know these aren’t high value targets, but I firmly believe people shouldnot be permitted to do drive bys. They are all getting a letter this am and they all bought spot on our spam list.”

Hmm. This may be worth remembering next time labor leaders trot out supposedly important professors. Labor thinks they don’t know what they’re signing, most really are not worth it, and they aren’t high value targets.

Got it!

Apparently some politicians didn’t like that the public got educated and angry about the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, so they are trying Card Check 2.0 without time for the public to discuss the issue. Roll Call reports:

As Senate Democrats struggle to hammer out a compromise bill on union organizing, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is sketching a process for railroading the bill through the floor as quickly as possible to prevent Republicans from rallying a major campaign against it, senior Democratic aides said.

If the reforms are good for working Americans, wouldn’t it stand to reason that they are worth taking time to consider and have a public discussion over? Well, consider this quote from Roll Call’s report (behind a login):

Look, informed people can disagree on important political issues. But before one goes shooting off their mouth — or their e-mouth, in the case of the Internet — it would be wise to do some sort of research. Yet proponents of the horrifically misnamed Employee Free Choice Act seem to go out of their way to push the bill while remaining grossly ignorant about the topic and underlying facts.

Case in point: “RickIsThinking” at DailyKos. In a recent diary, titled “The Employee Free Choice Act Should Not Get Watered Down,” Rick wasn’t thinking much when he wrote:

First came the talk of a possible compromise by removing the card check provision — now big business wants to do away with binding arbitration and the penalties it would face in not getting a first contract.

I read today that Representative John Kline, a republican from Minnesota (who I never heard of before today) said, “From my perspective the bill is very bad policy because it takes away the secret ballot.” But that is bullshit, it doesn’t take away the secret ballot at all. How does a politician get quoted in the news blatantly lying and get away with it? With all the deregulation, there is clearly zero regulation on these people.

Ugg. Where to begin? Here’s the quick version:

• Card check does effectively remove the secret ballot — anyone who claims otherwise does so in the face of evidence (namely, you know, the actual language in the bill itself). Will “Rick” read the bill before calling the next person a liar? We hope so, but doubt it.
• Deregulation as a boogeyman again, eh? American businesses, particularly small business, faces an enormous burden in red tape. A rough estimate puts the cost of regulatory compliance at more than $1.7 trillion each year.
• Again, regarding getting a first contract — setting an agreement covering every employee in the unit’s wages, hours, work rules, and benefits takes a while so EFCA’s rush to a contract ought to be troubling to more people. In fact, if one cares about workers, there would be more concern over having a contract imposed upon them by a government bureaucrat.

But there’s a statement — perhaps a small one, but an offensive one nonetheless — that gets our attention. “Rick” writes:

He also said that because the bill imposes binding arbitration and increases penalties on business, from his perspective … it is not a good law. BUT HAS THIS GUY EVER ORGANIZED A UNION? Has this guy ever even worked a day in this life?

Hmm… “Has this guy ever even worked a day in his life?” It sure would be awesome if there were some giant, accessible medium for searching and finding information like a representative’s bio. Since we have mastered the magical technology of the Internet, we popped over to see if indeed Rep. Kline was a shiftless ne’er-do-well and this is what we found:

Although this marks his first elected office, John Kline spent several years in Washington during his 25-year career in the U.S. Marine Corps. He distinguished himself as a helicopter pilot and earned the responsibility of flying Marine One, the President

Ah, it all gets so confusing. First, some politicians said there was enough momentum to pass the anti-democratic Employee Free Choice Act as “payback” for union support during the last elections. Then the secret-ballot-stripping “card check” provision of the bill was called “toxic” and sent EFCA proponents in search of fancy euphemisms (like “majority signup”).

But as rumors of card check’s possible demise have heated up, so have rumors of potential “alternatives” such as ambush elections and mail-in ballots. Ambush elections are unfair to both employers and employees, and evidence out of Missouri this week suggests mail-in ballots may not be a perfect way to protect employees, either.

The Associated Press reports that a Missouri judge has temporarily “blocked the certification of a union election for in-home care providers” after the company alleged flaws in the elections process:

A hearing is set for Aug. 4 on whether to grant a preliminary injunction against certifying the election.

[Judge] Beetem’s order was brought to the attention of The Associated Press on Thursday by an attorney for Integra Healthcare Inc., which filed the lawsuit claiming the election lacked safeguards to ensure the legitimacy of mail-in ballots and wrongly excluded some eligible voters.

Mail-in ballots may be slightly better than card check, but they’re not necessarily as good as the current system. Remember that there have been strong and recent allegations that leading card check proponent SEIU has abused the mail-in ballot process in a fight to prevent many unsatisfied members from departing for a rival union (“Homecare providers reported scores of incidents of voter intimidation, illegal threats, and ballot manipulation by SEIU staff,” according to a press release).

It appears there are many problems with the mail-in ballot notion, as employees are sure to learn the hard way if Congress tries to pass reckless “reform”.

The relative importance of Sen. Arlen Specter’s views on the Employee Free Choice Act — and labor law reform in general — is high because the law’s razor-thin margins for success or failure in the Senate. This weekend the Philadelphia Inquirer looked at the bill’s status and the political whispers around their home-state Senator’s role.

Luckily, ABC was there to add some employer perspective. After noting an EFCA proponent’s position, the Inquirer reports:

Not surprisingly, Jerry Gorski, national chairman of the Associated Builders and Contractors, disagrees. Not only is the bill unfair to workers and businesses, he says, but it also shows a mind-set that ignores the realities of the global economy.

“Why is the government saying, ‘Well, we need to make it easier to go back to that union model,’ instead of being progressive and helping develop what the new models are?” Gorski asks.

Workers and owners need flexibility, Gorski argues, not rules that say who can use a hammer and who can’t.

He says being flexible allowed his contracting business in Collegeville to avoid layoffs during the current recession, though that sometimes means carpenters painting or landscaping.

“We may be underutilizing someone’s skills,” Gorski says, “but everybody is working, and that’s the kind of stability and adaptability we need. . . . Legislation isn’t going to solve our workforce needs for the future.”

Hey, wasn’t the world recently told that the “card check” provision of the Employee Free Choice Act — noted as “toxic” by Sen. Harry Reid — effectively dead? No one told SEIU, the biggest union pushing to avoid elections. Hey, they “don’t do elections,” you’ll remember.

But over at SEIU’s website, they’re bragging that they’ve collected 17,000 signatures for “majority signup” — the newest euphemism for card check. What gives?

Well, SEIU doesn’t think it can win enough fair elections so it seeks to avoid the process entirely. You can watch this businessman’s story for some good details:

Whatever you call it, “card check” or “majority signup” is bad news for employees.

And, we gotta say, 17,000 (right now) is a looooooong way from a majority.