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

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As we mentioned recently, the fight over who sits on the National Labor Relations Board is an issue of enormous importance. So as voices as large as the Wall Street Journal have signaled warnings over NLRB nominee Craig Becker, leading trade associations have BeckerLetter to Senators Tom Harkin and Mike Enzi to hold a hearing on his nomination.

The letter, signed by Associated Builders and Contractors, reads in part:

Mr. Becker has written prolifically about the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the law he would be charged with interpreting and enforcing should he be confirmed. Many of the positions taken in his writings are well outside the mainstream and would disrupt years of established precedent and the delicate balance in current labor law. These positions have raised significant concern in the employer community, for example, the extent to which he would restrictively interpret employers

The Wall Street Journal this morning lays out its case of concern over National Labor Relations Board nominee Craig Becker, who has been a lawyer for the provocative union, SEIU. In that role, he was tied to ACORN and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich:

There’s more. One of the many accusations leveled against former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is that he accepted money from the SEIU in return for taking actions giving collective bargaining rights to Illinois home health-care workers. While Mr. Becker denies any knowledge of, or role in, contributions to the former Governor, he does admit that he provided “advice and counsel to SEIU relating to proposed executive orders and proposed legislation giving homecare workers a right to organize and engage in collective bargaining under state law.”

Mr. Becker says he “worked with and provided advice” to SEIU Local 880 in Chicago, a beneficiary of the newly unionized health workers, and one of two SEIU locals currently in the national spotlight for its deep ties with Acorn. Mr. Becker denies working for Acorn or its affiliates, but as recently as April Acorn co-founder Wade Rathke praised Mr. Becker by name, noting “For my money, Craig’s signal contribution has been his work in crafting and executing the legal strategies and protections which have allowed the effective organization of informal workers, and by this I mean home health-care workers.”

Obviously, the NLRB is critical to maintaining the health of U.S. labor laws so it bears watching who sits on the board.

Steven J. Davis, the William H. Abbott professor of international business and economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, has some ideas on how to reverse unemployment figures that appear headed for 10 percent (which still underestimates the number of Americans who are out of work).

Among Prof. Davis’s ideas are experimenting and reacting, suspending the federal minimum wage mandates, roll back costly insurance benefit mandates, and … you guessed it, fight card check:

Renounce the grossly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act. This legislation, currently before Congress, threatens to stack the deck against employers in the union certification process. Current law requires a secret ballot election among workers when the employer opposes union certification. If the union wins majority support, the National Labor Relations Board certifies the union as the exclusive workplace representative in collective bargaining with the employer.

The Free Choice Act would eliminate the secret ballot requirement. Instead, union certification would require only that a majority of workers sign cards supplied by the union. This “card check” process is rife with potential for strong-arm tactics and intimidation by union supporters. Sign here or else!

It’s unclear whether the Free Choice Act and card-check provision will become law. Fears that the act might become law are enough to chill investment by firms that could be targets of card-check union certification. To allay these fears and remove the chill from investment, President Obama and congressional leaders should forcefully renounce the act now. If they won’t, moderate Democrats should step forward and publicly announce their opposition to the act. By taking this step, they would help restore business confidence and set the stage for more job-creating investments.

The academics — at least those not used and abused by the labor movement — agree: EFCA is bad for jobs.

UPDATE: It looks like plenty of people are seeing the need to address the jobs issue. Roll Call reports:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has assembled a group of economic experts to help Republicans lob attacks at Democratic assertions that the economy has begun to rebound as a result of the Obama administration

Writing for the editorial board of the Daily Camera in Colorado, Erika Stutzman argues:

If a union collects signed cards from more than 50 percent of workers, there can be a forced unionization without the use of secret ballots. That could put undue pressure on workers to vote a certain way. Secret ballots should be protected, and even treasured, by those who want individuals to retain their right to make their own choices.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has released a new paper, titled “Union Studies on Employer Coercion Lack Credibility and Integrity.” Here’s the quick synopsis:

In support of their legislative agenda, allies of organized labor frequently cite various studies to support the claim that employer coercion and a flawed National Labor Relations Board (NRLB or Board) election process stifle a considerable but unrealized demand for union representation. This paper analyzes several of the studies most often relied upon to support the positions advanced by organized labor