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

It’s hard to get much more direct that “Vote Against

The Wisconsin Rapids Tribune has a powerful guest column today in which a local resident shares his experience inside a union and comes out with one simple warning: say no to the Employee Free Choice Act.

Wayne Pankratz writes of the current process and the notion that “card check” would decrease intimidation for employees:

As a former union organizer who never lost an election, but organized the old fashioned way with hard work, this is a joke.

Anyone familiar with an organizing campaign not only knows the pressure co-workers can put on employees in and out of the workplace to get them to sign cards, but also realizes that all employees who sign cards in public will not vote for the union in private.

This Employee Free Choice Act sounds good in name only, but will only allow strong arm tactics to prevail instead of an objective vote.

The more we hear from inside the labor movement, the less it sounds like we ought to give away an employee’s right to a secret ballot.

Great piece in the opinion section of the Boston Globe by columnist Scot Lehigh, who looked at how candidates seeking union support answer labor’s questionairres. In this case, this is what he found for those seeking to replace the late Sen. Ted Kennedy:

One priority for the AFL-CIO is the Employee Free Choice Act. Among other things, that legislation would let a union be officially recognized when a majority of workers sign a union authorization card. Currently, employers can insist on a secret election. Although its declared goal is to insulate unionizing efforts from employer pressure, the legislation could also open the door to pressure by union organizers.

All four candidates said they support the legislation, which also requires arbitration if a firm fails to reach an agreement with a newly authorized union. Although his questionnaire doesn

Important news out of the BNA Daily Labor Report (no link available):

Unions participated in fewer resolved representation elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board during the first half of 2009 than the same period in 2008, but the percentage of elections won by unions increased substantially, according to NLRB data analyzed by BNA PLUS, BNA’s research division.

Unions won 73.1 percent of 588 private sector elections held during the first half of 2009, up from 66.5 percent of 813 elections held during the same period in 2008. The BNA PLUS survey only tracks elections conducted by NLRB, not organizing outside of NLRB processes.

Wow, 73 percent is a serious winning percentage. To put that in perspective, consider that in the most recently completed season:

• Only 4 NFL teams won that often
• Only 3 NBA teams won that much
• 0 baseball teams won that much … in fact, no team has ever won 118 games (the toll needed to hit the 73 percent threshold for a 162-game season) in the nation’s pastime

And union officials still want to rig the rules to avoid letting employees vote in elections that Big Labor won 73 percent of the time?

A quick interesting note that offers a good reminder of just how important it is to fight and kill the intentionally misnamed Employee Free Choice Act is that some top leaders of the Republican Party are considering something of a “purity test” for potential candidates — and a position against card check would be part of that decision.

That’s more evidence that opposition to EFCA is a political winner, as is news that a candidate under fire is pointing to her opposition to card check. Makes one wonder why any politicians would want to keep this on the table as they head into an election year.

Courtesy of BigGovernment.com, which has more details here.