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

… and today’s helpful reminder comes from the Washington Times:

Efforts by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups to paint the card-check proposal as poisonous to the economy appear to have worked as Democratic supporters struggle to round up the necessary 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. But EFCA opponents now worry that some moderates could support a compromise that still includes binding arbitration.

Investors Business Daily has this timely reminder:

If you thought “card check” legislation that would kill off workers’ right to a secret ballot is dead, think again. Despite public repudiation, it’s back

We noted yesterday the irony of union officials claiming the need for the Employee Free Choice Act based on alleged employer intimidation of employees — while a leading union is being accused of coercing its own members to keep them from joining a rival.

Well, the same story continues to play out. In the pages of the Washington Post, union organizer-turned-pseudo-scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner decries a supposed “war on organizing.” The Post, of course, fails to mention any financial or historical relationship between the author and unions (or the publisher of her study, the union-run Economic Policy Institute).

There’s more to that story, but we’re confident others are on it.

In the meantime, there are emerging details on allegations against SEIU for intimidating their own members. Ironically, this alleged intimidation comes during a process that allows each union member to vote by a mail-in private ballot — nearly identical to one card check “compromise” being floated as an ostensible way of ensuring worker rights.

It doesn’t sound very much like the mail-in ballot concept is preventing union intimidation:

Today marked the day when 10,000 workers in the Fresno area would begin receiving ballots in the mail. The election is to determine if workers want to remain members of SEIU or join NUHW.

While some politicians are looking for a way to escape voting for the Employee Free Choice Act (and, therefore, against secret ballots in the workplace and against job growth) talk in D.C. has turned, as it inevitably will, to compromise. Today, an op-ed in the Washington Examiner lays out tough votes for any politicians who want to tinker with the National Labor Relations Act, and concludes:

Currently, Card Check supporters are portraying their opponents as

Andy Stern is head of the Service Employees International Union and, as such, one of the top voices (and funders) pushing the anti-democratic, job-killing bill known euphemistically as the Employee Free Choice Act. During a sitdown with the Los Angeles Times editorial board, he had some puzzling statements:

• “I think everybody now agrees that there needs to be binding arbitration; not everyone, I’d say there’s an overwhelming majority that agrees there needs to be binding arbitration.”
• “I think no matter what we do we’re going to maintain secret ballot, because I think there’s always going to be an election process”

Those are remarkable statements. The first seems way off base to us. We know of almost no one — outside of organized labor — who thinks it’s a good idea to inject big government bureaucrats into small-business decisions through binding arbitration.

The second is a shocking admission that the secret ballot issue is not one that can really be won by unions. Unfortunately, that does not necessarily herald a victory for employee advocates. Big Labor still hopes to rush through “quickie elections” that deny employees time to get both sides of the story and making an informed choice.

It’s important EFCA opponents keep working to block “son of EFCA” compromises that still harm employees, employers, and our economy.

Brian Worth of the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace argues in the Washington Post that potential compromise points on the Employee Free Choice Act:

Union leaders know that they do not have the votes necessary to overcome principled bipartisan opposition to this legislation in the Senate. That is why EFCA supporters have shifted their energy to passing “compromise” legislation consistent with the original bill’s “principles.”

Compromise in the form of mail-in ballots (which is essentially card check with a stamp, a.k.a. “postcard check”), allowing union organizers unfettered access to employees in the workplace and mandating what amounts to quickie elections are proposals that purport to expedite the organizing process but, in reality, would sacrifice the rights of employees for the wants of professional union organizers, just as EFCA would.