Archive for August, 2009
Live From RightOnline: The Threat of Card Check
It’s fitting that right out of the gate at RightOnline that card check is on the agenda. Today’s panel, introduced by Americans for Prosperity’s Phil Kerpen, has speakers Vincent Vernuccio of EFCA Update and Tim Lee of the Center for Individual Freedom.
We’re taking notes…
1:31: Phil notes the Netroots Nation panel “the secret plan to defeat the right forever” and the audience gets it immediately…
1:32 Groans from the audience on news about Arlen Specter’s recently announced decision to vote for cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act…
1:34 Vernuccio wades into card check and what it means, as well as alleged “compromise” options. EFCA as a whole is the problem, not just “card check”
1:35 Vernuccio: a vote for cloture is a vote for EFCA
1:37 Vernuccio: any idea that there won’t be coercion under card check is a fallacy
1:39 Vernuccio: card check is not dead, it is still alive, we still have to keep an eye on it … moving on to binding arbitration. “you ask many business leaders, this is even worse than card check”
1:46 Vernuccio: Union leaders NEED arbitrators to stick employees into failing pension plans
1:52 Lee: The unions will know where you live, they can approach you at the supermarket, and the SEIU’s behavior at the recent health care protest will be the kind of behavior when they approach you at home.
1:53 Lee has a great handout called “EFCA’s Toxic Arbitration Clause”
Another Argument Against Card Check
There are plenty of things not to like about the Employee Free Choice Act, but by far the most visible problem is its provision to replace secret-ballot workplace elections with “card check.” Labor lawyer Jake Fulcher writes today in the Evansville Courier and Press:
If, after recognition, the union and company could not come to an agreement within 90 days, either party could refer the matter to the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS). If the FMCS could not resolve the dispute after thirty days, the matter would be referred to an arbitrator who would then decide the terms of the contract between the parties. That contract would be in effect for up to two years.
We would not see as much support for, and opposition to, EFCA had it maintained the status quo on the secret ballot election. The problem with relying on authorization cards as an employee’s vote in favor of unionization is that the NLRB has long recognized authorization cards are signed for a variety of reasons other than an employee genuinely wanting union representation, including under duress, coercion and threats.
Specter A Yes On Employee Free Choice Act?
Remember, this is just the latest rumor from a mill that turns them out like widgets, but the PAwatercooler blog gets an email from a “trusted” source regarding Sen. Arlen Specter and the Employee Free Choice Act:
My brother in law snuck into a democrat only townhall in Mifflintown PA at the Family House Restaurant [Wednesday]. It was just a fluke encounter. Specter told a woman there that he would be supporting Card Check and her union brother should
Survey Says: No To Employee Free Choice Act
A new survey of labor economists tells us what has been obvious to everyone but labor officials and a few of their closest political allies: the Employee Free Choice Act is bad policy.
The findings:
- Nearly two-thirds of economists surveyed believe Congress should not pass the Employee Free Choice Act.
- When informed about EFCA
Another Editorial: Ditch Card Check
It would be understandable, if the circumstances weren’t so serious, to take glee in the growing mountain of newspaper editorials that are weighing down the chances for labor bosses to pass the Employee Free Choice Act and its anti-democratic, job-killing provisions.
The latest is a great article from the Gaston Gazette, which concludes:
A secret-ballot election is the best way to minimize intimidation from either the union or management side. Eliminating it would open the door to possible abuses
