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

Stephen F. Diamond writes a how-to guide for new AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka on making the AFL-CIO “relevant again.” It’s worth a read to look at where Big Labor has come from, where it is, and where it could go.

This is what caught our eye, though. Diamond opines Trumka:

must rally solid support in America for democratic rights and better pay and working conditions for the billion or so workers who now have joined America in the global economy, in countries such as China, Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam.

Perhaps starting with more democratic rights for workers in the United States would be a better place to start. That would include scrapping the Employee Free Choice Act, but that’s unlikely as the misnamed bill is Labor’s top policy priority.

So it goes …

Remember those Pennsylvania union demonstrations involving union activists booing and shouting down those who disagreed with them, and the subsequent question we raised about what that portends for a post-card check world?

Well, one of our readers with a particularly good memory pointed us to a video of Sen. Tom Harkin — the Senate’s point man on the Employee Free Choice Act — earlier this year telling a Senate committee hearing room that “I don’t want to permit any hissing or booing or foot-stomping or throwing of things like that.” (Link here, see minute 43:00)

First it was the good Senator supporting secret ballots, which EFCA would effectively eliminate. Now he’s concerned about the exact type of behavior recently demonstrated by organized labor and the reason for concern in doing away with secret ballots. Once again, we find ourselves agreeing whole-heartedly with Sen. Harkin on key principles. We continue to hope those statements will inform his positions on the terrifyingly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act.

So let’s think this one out: You’re a union boss who’s desperate to get new members to pay your salary and prop up failing pension plans and you’ve come up with a bill that accomplishes that by 1) effectively eliminating secret ballots and 2) imposing government arbitrators to set key (and sensitive) business decisions.

So you’d think that when pushing such a toxic bill — especially one in which the likelihood of union intimidation has become a central concern — union officials would keep a moderate tone and language. That’s what you’d think, but you’d be wrong.

Over at Huffington Post, the AFL-CIO’s Stewart Acuff says “America Needs Warriors for Justice.” Words in his article: warriors, assault, fight, fight hard.

All this begs the question: if unions believe this is a holy war, does that not make employees who wish to remain union-free part of the enemy? And isn’t that precisely the reason we need to give them the protection of a secret ballot to decide whether to join a union?

Read more at:

Interesting item from South Dakota:

South Dakota has been an open-shop state since 1946, when a constitutional amendment passed to forbid using union membership as a condition of employment.

Now, the legislative majority leaders want to ensure that open-shop tradition will continue by means of another amendment – this time to pre-empt the federal Employee Free Choice Act.

The proposed amendment, from state Sen. Dave Knudson of Sioux Falls and state Rep. Bob Faehn of Watertown, simply would state that all elections, whether governmental or union, must be by secret ballot.

That news from the Argus Leader. It’s telling that politicians of any stripe have noticed the antipathy for EFCA is powerful enough to make an issue.

The Economics blog over at the Wall Street Journal has an important post today on the severe unemployment afflicting the construction industry and asks, “Without Construction, What of Blue-Collar Men?” Good question.

Consider this:

FoundingBloggers.com has rediscovered a classic, which is as good a reason as any to share this classic with you. It’s living proof that legislators ought not let these folks off the leash to use the “persuasion of power” on working Americans without the protection of a secret ballot.

Historical details here.