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

Kevin Mooney from the Examiner has a great article this morning on the threat of the Employee Free Choice Act (and, in particular, its binding arbitration provision) to small business. Interviewing Jonathan Johnson, president of Overstock.com, Mooney writes:

Helpful, hopeful words from Sen. John Thune:

Crain’s has a what-you-should-know-about the Employee Free Choice Act. Our readers already know the basics so we won’t belabor them, but we will pass along this sentiment, which we hear from ABC members all the time:

“Binding arbitration takes the onus off the union to be a serious negotiator,” says Butch Bingham, president of Bulkmatic Transport Co., whose Griffith, Ind., company faced a union drive five years ago. “It’s almost impossible to get a contract signed so quickly. Then some independent person will be deciding my economic package and whether or not my company survives.”

Even then, it’s only a best-case scenario that the person will really be independent.

OK, that title was borrowed from the book by now-Senator Al Franken. But it’s a good title to kick off what is a sadly continuing discussion on just how far proponents of card check (in the form of the Employee Free Choice Act) will push the bounds of honesty. So far, it appears they will seek or surpass those bounds with vigor.

The latest salvo comes from the Service Employees International Union, which is demanding Nebraska television stations stop airing an anti-EFCA group’s educational advertisement. The union’s lawyers say claims that EFCA will effectively end secret ballots — which it effectively does — are ” demonstrably false.”

Hmm. That’s pretty strong language. That would require, we imagine, a pretty strong factual case and, most likely, a finding by a court. Funny thing, then, is that history shows us courts have specifically found these claims are not false.

So SEIU’s claims of “demonstrably false” claims are themselves “demonstrably false.”

Then there’s the AFL-CIO’s Stuart Acuff going on television and misleading viewers when he said EFCA’s effective destruction of the secret ballot is untrue and that “The Wall Street Journal has said that that is a lie.” Again, “demonstrably false” as the SEIU, which had again stretched the truth. In fact, the newspaper took the rather extraordinary step of writing another editorial just to correct the union and those following its misrepresentations:

These guys must really be desperate. As we’ve written many times, “card check” effectively ends secret-ballot elections because it would allow labor organizers to automatically organize a work site if more than 50% of workers sign an authorization card. Thus our words: “dead letter.”

Obviously, EFCA is crucial to a handful of top union officials, who see billions of dollars in potential revenue by denying employees a private ballot to vote on whether they want to join a union. But we’d think they’d be a little more careful when throwing around loaded terms — because like a grenade with the pin pulled, the explosion can hurt the one throwing the bomb.

We’d be happier if everyone stuck to the truth. Of course, that’s an advantage for opponents of EFCA since the truth about EFCA is pretty powerful.

It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There’s a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. — The Princess Bride

Senator Al Franken has been sworn in, giving Democrats 60 seats in the upper chamber. Senator Franken’s first legislative act was to sign on as a co-sponsor to the seriously unfunny Employee Free Choice, for which the punchline will be lost jobs and fewer rights in the workplace.

Even so, Matthew Cooper at the Atlantic’s blog argues EFCA is still stuck:

But the problem that’s plagued the bill for months still remains: 60 Democrats don’t support it and the Republicans are determined to filibuster the measure, which has united the business community like nothing else in recent memory.

… now, anything that passes is likely to involve compromise that will weaken the impact of the bill further. One labor source tells me that “something” is likely to pass this year but it won’t be the original measure that business seems to be able to kill despite the Democrats having 60 votes.

Cooper notes that he has argued in favor of the bill because it seems to him a “modest” bill. Perhaps, but it may be like seemingly innocuous iocane powder — odorless, tasteless, dissolves instantly in liquid, but among the deadlier policy poisons known to man.

But, as noted above, EFCA is not completely dead. In fact, Senator John Thune yesterday correctly described card check as “undead”:

Sen. John Thune (R-SD) says the

Katie Packer from the Workplace Fairness Institute writes:

Labor unions themselves concede the passage of EFCA would generate millions of new members with the head of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) projecting 1.5 million new dues-paying union members every year for at least 10 years. If you assume that union members pay, on average, $425 per year in dues, the numbers are staggering: Passage of EFCA would result in $35 billion over the next 10 years, headed straight for union coffers.

Ka-Ching!

Of course, that’s the “benefit” side. The cost comes in lower economic activity, hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of jobs, and basic workplace rights. (What’s the opposite of “Ka-Ching”? “Ching-Ka!”?)