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

If there were some sort of little hobgoblin, tucked back in the hovels of the U.S. Capitol, whose sole task was to convince the public that the Employee Free Choice Act is a good idea, then that poor little guy would be having yet another terrible day.

Our friends at Shopfloor.org point us to this comment from incoming AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka:

Today, more than ever, we need to be a labor movement that stands by our friends, punishes its enemies, and challenges those who, well, can

Just to continue the food metaphor for no particular reason other than it’s a simple way to get started for the week, the question for watchers of the Employee Free Choice Act is whether the issue is getting cold on the counter or just waiting to be heated and served.

While much of the world focuses on Sen. Harry Reid’s comment that EFCA is not on the table right now, news and commentary around the issue is actually percolating a bit more now than it was a few weeks ago. Here’s a smorgasbord of recent items:

• The Huffing Post crew wants to add card check and binding arbitration to Ted Kennedy’s legacy
• The mayor of Park Forest, Illinois — who also happens to be a teachers union representative, writes: “For Labor, After Health Care Reform Next Goal Is Passing EFCA” … glad to see opinions like this embedded into our local governments and protecting bad teachers
• The influential Advertiser in Louisiana editorializes: “Labor has a history of intimidating employees into voting for a union. Management has a history of retaliating against those who do. The default position should be a secret ballot that protects workers from undue influence by either side. Rep. Melancon is a co-sponsor of the act, although he appears to be moving away from the card-check provision. Sen. Landrieu should do the same.”
• Tampa business leader: “EFCA – with or without the card-check provision – would fundamentally change that, and in the process, change the way we do business. It would have the unintended consequence of damaging our ability to compete and therefore would put in jeopardy the jobs that EFCA purports to protect.”
• The letter to the editor you must read today: “Our Maginot Line”

By now, many have heard that Sen. Harry Reid has said the Employee Free Choice Act is stuck on the back burner because “We have too many other things on our plate.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean EFCA is in the scrap heap; it just means it’s staying warm and ready to be served at a later date.

Someone has finally gotten through to top union bosses to let them know that the public and elected leaders aren’t going for the Employee Free Choice Act. So, does organized labor scrap the bill? Heck, no! Change the sales pitch!

Hitting newspapers and websites near you is the new argument: drink your poison, it’s good for you! In the San Jose Mercury News, Netsy Firestein says EFCA is “good for the bottom line and for our working families.” And over at Huffington Post, Art Levine … well, contorts some anti-Glenn Beck sentiment and adds in some EFCA-is-good-for-small-business “thoughts.”

While Levine spends plenty of time attacking the relatively safe notion that a massive new government health insurance monolith would end up being bad for small business, much of his argument is focused on the EFCA’s effects on small business. To that end, he highlights a report from the union front group esteemed American Rights At Work that “points out that union-dense states have lower rates of small business failure.” In addition to that dubious finding, the report claims unions help small businesses in the following ways:

• Boost consumer spending — boosting wages for a few workers while causing job loss is no way to improve the economy (which is why the argument is pushed by an activist group and not an economist); this “analysis” would also miss the point that consumer spending won’t help many small businesses, while the increased costs and work rules are killers
• Access to training — ABC members know all too well about union-run training programs, which deny training to non-union workers (even if they just want to work on government-funded projects that ought to be open to everyone looking to work hard)
• Pooling to reduce health care costs — this is perhaps the most disingenuous argument imaginable since union lobbyists have worked to kill association plans that would allow small businesses to form their own bigger risk pools without having to go into poorly run union pension/health pools

A more cynical blog would think organized labor was grasping at straws, failing to address the crippling costs of red-tape work rules.

But let’s focus on the core concept labor advocates have the temerity to put forth: unions are good for small business. There is a decent body of evidence to show that union officials are not the best judges of how to run a business. Consider:

• Unions have run their balance sheets dangerously close to insolvency
• While union bosses have managed to secure their own retirements, they have run their members’ pension funds into the ground
• Union bosses don’t know how to treat their employees well at all. Working for the unions suck if you don’t want them to steal your pensionor slashed benefits by 95 percent or if you don’t want to be fired in mass layoffs … and especially if you want to join a union.

Taking organized labor’s advice on how to build up small businesses is like asking the fox to plan the hen house dinner menu, or like taking Bernie Madoff’s advice on sound retirement planning, or like … well, you get the idea.

Hat tip to Workplace Prof Blog and Ross Runkel for catching this important item. As many in the building and contracting world know all too well, there has been a history in construction trade unions of favoring some racial groups over others.

Now Professor Harry Hutchison of George Mason University looks at the Employee Free Choice Act and concludes:

… rather than embracing freedom for workers, eliminating poverty, and expanding opportunities for all, this proposal would likely invert such goals and instead operate consistently with the record of exclusion and subordination tied to American Progressivism and the labor movement.

For those who would question Prof. Hutchison’s credentials, they include: M.A., Wayne State University; M.B.A., University of Michigan; J.D., Wayne State University; Diploma, University of Oxford; P.G.C.E., University of Bristol.

Many analysts believe Ground Zero for the fight over the Employee Free Choice Act lies in Arkansas, which has two moderate Democrats for Senators. Both have shown public skepticism about the bill’s effective elimination of secret ballots in workplace elections and the imposition of government arbitrators into the good-faith negotiating process — you know, the two main provisions of EFCA.

Perhaps one of the reasons the Arkansas senators are so wary is that their constituents don’t like EFCA. The latest evidence comes from the pages of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and a letter to the editor:

Organizing outdated

Re George West’s letter, “Unions shield workers”: My dad worked for a union-represented company many years and I suppose it worked out OK, but since we have nothing to compare as far as what would have happened otherwise, who knows?

Doesn’t West understand that unions are not vital today because we have employee/company federal laws that apply?

Unions are the primary issue that destroyed Chrysler and General Motors. Now West wants the public to support the Employee Free Choice Act. What’s free about this? It takes away an employee’s right to a secret ballot. If this passes, daily harassment and threats from the union leaders will be the result. Talk about being un-American.

DIANNE HILLESTAD