The News says the argument for EFCA is undercut:

Back to Alabama, where instead of union membership declining, membership is increasing, even as unemployment continues to rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, union membership climbed by 10,000 workers in 2009, to a total of 181,000. The number of state residents represented by unions (they’re covered by union contracts but are not official union members) rose to 212,000, or 12 percent of all state workers.

Alabama’s percentage of union workers is more than double border states Tennessee (5.1 percent), Mississippi (4.8 percent) and Georgia (4.6 percent). Alabama’s story doesn’t help the unions make their case.
With Congress expected to become more Republican after this year’s elections, union leaders know they’re running out of time on this lousy card-check idea.

Exactly.

Such a blase attitude may be warranted if the cards were something as unimportant as a supermarket discount card, a nice coupon for half off the second entree at the local Mexican restaurant, maybe even a library card. But a voter registration card? Voting is the cornerstone of participatory democracy, and that card is the key to getting in — it’s the ultimate franchise.

So it’s interesting to note ACORN sibling SEIU’s view of the cards that are the key to the labor realm — union authorization cards that would be the one-stop sign-up for dues, work rules, failing pensions, fines, strikes, and more. While most Americans are outraged unions would try to form without letting people vote, SEIU says the card will take care of it. No need to offer the protection of a secret ballot vote, nothing to see here, move along folks.

Of course, there’s plenty of allegations to suggest that SEIU doesn’t really value the secret ballots of its own members, so perhaps cards really aren’t the answer to any problem. Perhaps SEIU isn’t worried about process, but just outcome. Unfortunately, that kind of thinking is usually bad for employees.

Just something to think about.

The way he can achieve such a political victory? Force through the installation of the Card Check King, otherwise known as National Labor Relations Board nominee — and SEIU and AFL-CIO lawyer — Craig Becker.

Unfortunately for employers, employees, and everyone else, Becker is off the wall. Those aren’t our words, they’re the words of a top Senator, Orrin Hatch.

So, we ask: Would winning a Becker battle be a “hinge” moment or a “fringe” moment? We think the facts speak for themselves, but ask yourself one final question: If Becker weren’t so far outside the mainstream and so dedicated to decreasing employer and employee speech at the expense of union power, would the powerful SEIU rest so many of its hopes on him?

Big Labor is covering its bets against the likelihood that President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress won’t be able to deliver Card Check to kill the secret ballot in workplace representation elections. The sidebet is at the three-member National Mediation Board.

Never heard of it? Well, the NMB was established by FDR during the New Deal to mediate labor-management disputes in the railroad industry, then had its regulatory purview expanded to include the airline industry. The NMB has the power to impose compulsory arbitration when labor and management are unable to reach a settlement within 30 days.

Two of the three members now on the NMB are former union officials, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala, who came to the board from, respectively, the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) unions. President Obama appointed Puchala.

Certainly something to keep an eye on.

The answer? Nope. No. Nein. The Senator said:

The man is off the wall. He’s very smart, I mean, I don’t mean to demean him. He’s a smart man. In fact that’s one of the problems. He will do any thing to help the SEIU and the AFL-CIO. Anything!

And that includes doing by regulation at the NLRB that which you could never get through legislation, and once they do that, I think it would be not only unconstitutional, but, you know, illegal, but it would take years all the way through the Supreme Court to change it. And that’s what they’re up to.

I can’t believe the president would put Becker up there, knowing how very …That was even a bipartisan vote against Becker, by the way, and I’d be very surprised if he did that.

Fantastic work, as always, by Carter Wood and the Shopfloor team.

Of course, we believe in positive solutions, so we offer: If the President is looking for a gentle way to break with Big Labor on this issue, here are 101 ways to say no.

Given the above, one would think that a union boss would behappy thrilled to hear that his own union’s  workers signed union authorization cards and want to unionize…right? Further, one would think that said union boss would readily recognize his workers’ union using the card check method…right? After all, the ends do justify the means and with all the money that has been spent, the politicians that have been bought, the lies that have been told, card-check is good…right?

… and then points to this story …

In about a month, 20 secretaries, clerks, and administrators – all employees of one of the city’s most storied unions – will participate in a National Labor Relations Board election to decide whether they want to be represented by a union themselves.

Ironically, their employer, longtime labor leader Henry Nicholas, declined to recognize the bargaining unit when he was presented with signed petition cards from a majority of the workers.

Nicholas is a staunch supporter of a proposed federal law known as “card check,” which would allow unions to organize workplaces without a separate election if a majority of workers sign cards requesting representation.

The Labor Relations Board has scheduled an April 2 election for the employees of District 1199C of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).

The paper’s advice to Big Labor:

Union membership in the private sector fell 10 percent during Mr. Obama’s first year in office, to a historic low of 7.2 percent. A poll last month from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that only 41 percent of those surveyed now have a favorable view of unions, compared with 58 percent in a similar survey in 2007.

It’s up to them, of course, but maybe the AFL-CIO should simply announce it’s going to work next fall for the party that has the best plan to cut government spending, cut taxes and thus allow private employers to create new jobs. Because a change of course seems advisable. And dumping the radical, far-left agenda — which the rank and file have never considered a hill to die for — might be a start.

That would be good advice, but we’re quite confident Big Labor is going in the wrong direction. It is pushing PLA’s, Davis-Bacon Act red tape, and now the unfortunately named “high road” contracting requirements that are the biggest threat to efficient government spending we’ve seen in ages.

Indeed.

Parties to first contracts could arbitrate their issues now, but rarely do, because they would be turning over their wages, benefits and working conditions to a third party who probably has little or no expertise in the parties’ business, no practical experience in their operations and, most important, will not have to live with the consequences of the decision.

The very important business of labor relations and bargaining is best left to the parties involved, no matter how imperfect the process may be.

Indeed, even the best-intentioned arbitrator can not know the full business needs of any firm or any single workforce. It’s like asking a general practitioner to do open heart surgery: you could get lucky, but more than likely the patient isn’t going to make it.

To leave an employer and employees in such a position as to have their interests superseded by a government bureaucrat is to totally abdicate business and moral responsibility.