thetruthaboutefca.com | The Truth About The Employee Free Choice Act & Card Check » Wall Street Journal

The Tie Between Card Check and Sen. Casey’s Bill

Admin — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:34:27 +0000

For longer than we care to remember, we have been highlighting the link between the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act and failing union pension funds. In effect, EFCA is one method of bailing out the retirement funds by forcing new payers into unions without giving them the right to a secret ballot vote. As this morning’s Wall Street Journal editorial page argues, Big Labor and its allies are turning to a new bailout through a bill by Sen. Bob Casey in part because:

Union chiefs prefer the power that comes with managing huge pension investments

Card Check: Getting Worse?

Admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:46:30 +0000

Well, it — the Employee Free Choice Act — can’t get better until it’s scrapped entirely and would-be labor reformers start again with a better set of goals. The Wall Street Journal this morning focuses on Sen. Arlen Specter’s announced effort to reformulate EFCA. The plan seems to include ambush elections and union access to employer facilities.

The Journal:

The new old “card check,” according to Mr. Specter, also gives unions unprecedented access to the workplace and meetings between employers and employees before a vote to unionize. Last we checked the Constitution, even in the age of Obama private companies haven’t signed away their property rights.

An equally problematic binding arbitration provision stays in. This idea would let a federal arbitrator impose a contract if the employer and a newly organized union aren’t able to agree within three months. In other words, a government-sponsored agent would decide what salaries and benefits management will have to pay its employees. Throw in the expanded access to company property, and this so-called compromise bill may be worse than the original.

It would be a feat, of sorts, to out-do the terrible aspects of the original bill. And, we would like to reiterate that (to our knowledge) employers do still have some rights worth preserving.

PS — Don’t forget that the binding arbitration provision could force newly unionized firms into failing union pension funds, creating immediate and massive new liabilities.

Card Check’s Chances For A Vote “Dim”

Admin — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 13:22:50 +0000

The Wall Street Journal has the latest gossip about the likelihood of a vote on the Employee Free Choice Act this year:

Chances that Congress will vote on a union-organizing bill this year are dimming as lawmakers make health care and appropriations the top priorities.

Some Democratic senators have been trying for months to find a way around the bill’s most contentious provision, the “card check” rule that would let workers to unionize by simply signing up rather than running a secret-ballot vote.

While attempts at a compromise have made headway, less progress has been made on the bill’s other divisive element: imposing a government-appointed arbitrator to set contract terms — including wages and benefits — if companies and newly formed unions can’t agree within 120 days of bargaining.

Frankly, tha’ts pretty much par for the course as rumors ping back and forth from side to side. But the irony of the union-busting, union-raiding, employee-harassing Service Employees International Union claiming to stand up for workers is a bit too rich to let pass:

Members of the Service Employees International Union are expected to deliver petitions signed by 18,000 members to Congress, arguing that card-check should be part of a final bill. SEIU president Andy Stern said having a majority of workers sign cards is “the fairest way for workers to negotiate for better job security and wages, given the intensity of employer harassment and intimidation.”

Given the union’s history, we shudder to think how they collected those signatures.