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

The Birmingham News isn’t letting up on its watchful eye on the Employee Free Choice Act. The paper’s editors warn today that the bill isn’t dead and goes on to opine:

Big labor has made some mistakes in its frenzy to get politicians to support card check, and that may be what’s behind the renewed effort to get card check in front of Congress before adjournment. Labor targeted Arkansas U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln because Lincoln, a moderate Democrat, opposed card check. She defeated the labor candidate in the June 8 primary, and she’s not likely to be a friend to unions now if she wins in November.

With unions continuing to lose membership, they should be investigating what they’re doing wrong instead of trying to change the rules so drastically that they get an unfair advantage.

As we’ve tried to remind readers, the Employee Free Choice Act isn’t just about card check — it’s also about who gets to decide what wages, work rules, and retirement plan governs when organized labor and employers settle on a contract. EFCA contains a “binding interest arbitration” clause that would allow government-imposed outsiders to set those terms of employment, rather than allowing the normal negotiation process to take place.

What happens in real life when arbitration is forced into the situation? You get terrible financial messes like the ones experienced in Vallejo, California, where citizens seeking to clean up their fiscal morass are attempting to rid themselves of a law that requires the city to go into binding arbitration with public employee unions.

The goal is to pass Measure A, which the San Francisco Chronicle says is “poised to pass.” The paper also explains, “Measure A would eliminate binding arbitration from the city charter, which means the city will no longer be required to adopt contracts ordered by an arbitrator after union talks fail.”

That’s important to understand because when this kind of forced arbitration is in place it removes the need for organized labor representatives to bargain in good faith. Instead, they can simply wait for an outside party — who may know little to nothing about the industry — to throw some slapdash agreement together and call it a day.

Moreover, binding interest arbitration actually harms employees by forcing on them a contract that they may have chosen to “leave” under a different “take it or leave” scenario. They are stuck with a contract they may not even get to vote on.

One of the issues that has been raised as it’s been discovered that the National Labor Relations Board has issued a request for cost estimates of a system that would allow employees to use electronic ballots in union-representation elections is whether the process will open employees to intimidation in the same way as the card check provision of the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act.

Keith Bogardus of the The Hill, who has been tracking this issue for years, ran an article yesterday examining employer concerns. The piece highlighted a letter by the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, of which Associated Builders and Contractors is a member:

The Associated Press is running an interesting look at the evolving politics of Florida’s Governor and Senate candidate Charlie Crist, who has gone from nominal Republican to … well, seemingly a big fan of Big Labor.

These are not our words but that of the AP, which says Crist has:

Cozied up to labor unions, teachers unions and trial lawyers. Crist asked the AFL-CIO for its endorsement, appearing before the group and telling them he will listen to their arguments in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize. Republicans oppose it because of a “card check” provision that allows workers to form a union by signing cards instead of holding a secret-ballot vote.

This is rather self-defeating if it’s meant as crass politics, since card check is so unpopular that many seeking elected office this year are highlighting their opposition to it.

Our colleague Keith Smith at Shopfloor has an insightful look at some of the notable cases to be made against the possible electronic ballot that the National Labor Relations Board has shown interest in. Click through to see a surprising name.

* unintentionally offensive title reference here

Democratic hopefuls in this year’s North Carolina election for Senate took the opportunity to debate last night in an attempt to distinguish themselves. Union issues were high on the agenda, including the relative stances of State Sen. Cal Cunningham and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall on whether public employees should be bargaining with the state and, of course, the sadly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act.

The News-Record reports that Marshall didn’t get a question about EFCA and its card check provision but has supported it in the past. It also adds:

And although he supports the Employee Free Choice Act, Cunningham said he doesn