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

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.

“I was extremely upset,” said Silbenia Conley of Kerman. She said she witnessed a heavyset African-American male come to her door, allegedly tear down a red NUHW support sign, replace it with a SEIU magnetized sign, then speed off in a newer silver-gray Chevy Malibu. “I was cussing. That (sign) was given to me,” Conley said.

Conley and her husband are both in-home care workers, and she said she doesn’t know how SEIU received their home address.

Conley made a police report following the incident, and said Kerman police told her that it was considered theft since the man took her sign.

In a separate incident, Lesalie Kyle of Clovis said she witnessed a man wearing a purple SEIU t-shirt allegedly kick in the screen on her front door, then place several SEIU flyers in front of her NUHW support poster.

UPDATE: Bradley Peck at the Chamberpost blog has some facts about Bronfenbrenner’s study and sympathy for those who are forced to flack it:

I actually feel for Big Labor’s communication folks on this issue. It is truly hard to convince a bunch of Americans that secret ballot elections are bad and should be eliminated — private choice is in our DNA. So with great empathy I will give them a tip, when trying to make your case you should avoid using, as Bronfenbrenner does, public sector unions as your beacon of hope. That particular regulatory capture isn’t working very well.

Tags: Compromise, Intimidation, SEIU