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

A new mailer hitting Virginia mailboxes asks residents to contact Sen. Jim Webb and Sen. Mark Warner to support the Employee Free Choice Act. In short, the mailer pleads, “We need a new law to make sure workers have a voice in the workplace.” Leave aside for a moment the fact that the statement is incorrect or, at the very least, highly arguable. Focus, instead, on the group making this plea.

The Service Employees International Union is to be thanked for the pretty direct mail piece. Its motto for this purpose is “Change That Works.” “Works” would be news to the 75 staffers the union bagged due to financial problems.

And what of SEIU’s basic point about needing “card check” sign-up for joining a union instead of the current elections process (which actually protects employees, rather than harming them)? Well, Workforce Management is reminding readers that “The Service Employees International Union is being accused of refusing to allow members to use the card-check process to defect to a rival union.”

And, of course, there’s SEIU’s hypocrisy on EFCA’s binding arbitration provision.

Senators Webb and Warner would be better served listening to their real constituents, not a hypocritical, self-interested money machine.

F. Vincent Vernuccio has a strong article in the Examiner, in which he lays out the threat of the Employee Free Choice Act’s binding arbitration provision:

This allows the government to write a contract from scratch, going much further than the traditional role of an arbitrator interpreting existing terms. Even if a representative of a newly formed union requested arbitration the workers would still have little say in the final outcome.

Unlike today where the workers can vote on an agreement, Card Check would give a union representative the power to present the union’s position to the arbitrator. The arbitrator would then create the contract, essentially erasing the worker from the final decision.

Over at the website of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, F. Vincent Vernuccio writes a primer on the Employee Free Choice Act’s frustrating arbitration provision. The abstract reads:

In the ongoing debate over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, H.R. 1409, S 560), the Act

We came across this great post by Warner Todd Huston over at Publiusforum.com and couldn’t sum it up better ourselves:

Of course we

The Los Angeles Times has an eye-opening story this morning: “SEIU borrows business’ anti-union tactics to fend off a rival.” It seems now that an upstart rival (actually, a group that has broken away from SEIU because it believes the union doesn’t represent members well) has tried to take existing SEIU members and get them into a new organization. And it also seems that SEIU is fighting aggressively to avoid letting that happen — even using the same kind of — completely legal — tactics that employers can use to protect their rights.

The tactics SEIU is using — filing a bunch of complaints to the National Labor Relations Board, educating employees/members, spending a ton of money, etc — are not unethical. They are just hypocritical. That’s because the SEIU is a leading proponent of gaining new members without letting them vote via the Employee Free Choice Act, but when it comes to something as important as the future of their dues-paying membership, they demand an election.

It’s especially noteworthy that SEIU’s use of their rights before the National Labor Relations Board are drawing this fire from their rival:

“The average election is scheduled in 60 days, and nothing has been scheduled here,” Rosselli said, noting that many of the signed petitions were filed in February.

It’s true in spirit that elections are held quickly — though most are held even faster than 60 days. Again, SEIU has every right to use the law but it’s obscene that they are demanding an end to employers’ very same rights.

Finally, note that this hypocrisy over the election phase isn’t the only embarrassing turn for SEIU, whose leader has ridiculously called for binding arbitration in ways no union or employer should ever endorse.

Be sure to read all of Mark McKinnon’s argument over at Hotline’s ON CALL:

Union bosses are attempting to equate the binding interest arbitration provision with other types of arbitration, such as arbitration used in privately resolving disputes. These two types of arbitration are not created equal and comparing the two is intellectually dishonest.

When arbitration is used in resolving disputes the arbitrator serves as a judge, interpreting existing contracts that parties have previously agreed to.

EFCA hands the final decision of any business contract to a government arbitrator, who would draft and finalize the contract rather than simply interpret the provisions agreed upon by both parties. Instead of serving as a judge, the Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act makes the arbitrator a dictator of sorts, imposing his will on the parties without their consent.