Former Union Organizer Warns Against Employee Free Choice Act
Saturday, November 28th, 2009 by AdminThe 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.
November 28th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Darrell says:I have been an organizer for 15 years and the pressure that is put on by an employee pales in comparsion to the pressure and the absolute disregard for employee rights in the workplace by management. Any organizer worth a grain of salt has spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours with the Regional NLRB’s filing charges for numerous violations of the NLRA. So don’t lie to America about card check. I have run many of them without incident until George Bush took office. EFCA may not be perfect, but it is a millions times better for the workers than what is in place now.
November 29th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
admin says:Darrell, first: why do union representatives so frequently characterize opponents of EFCA as “lying” when the facts are so clear?
Second: Employees, employers, and elected leaders have recognized that the Employee Free Choice Act is, in your words, “a million times” worse than the status quo.