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

Washington Examiner reporter Kevin Mooney has a great article on the problems with “compromise” or alternatives to the Employee Free Choice Act. Frankly, it’s hard to beat the explanation of Rep. John Kline, the new ranking Member of the House Committee on Education and Labor:

“From my perspective the bill is very bad public policy because it takes away the secret ballot and because it imposes binding arbitration and increases penalties on business,” Kline said. “That’s why getting rid of just one provision here is not acceptable. My colleagues and I will continue to resist any so-called compromise.”

Makes sense to us.

Card check isn’t really dead, despite reports. It’s important to keep an eye on developments, so we’re continuing to track them.

A Harrisonburg, Virginia paper reminds readers:

So by agreeing to eliminate the “card-check” component of the legislation, thereby preserving the secret ballot in union elections, liberal proponents of the egregiously misnamed Employee Free Choice Act have given up the ghost, or cried “Uncle,” right?

Not by a long shot. They’re merely taking a different tack to attain their dubious and job-killing ends. This stinkeroo has simply been re-packaged. Many of the bill’s noxious elements remain.

Over at IBD, they write:

Card check may be a dead issue, but companies aren’t yet free of the union threat. An anti-business provision of the perversely named Employee Free Choice Act is still under consideration.

Meanwhile, Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, is trying to convince Politico’s readership that EFCA and its alternatives are not necessarily dead. He’s none too convincing, though, and it comes off as more of a whiny plea.

Many in the employer community are concerned that proponents of the sadly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act have seized on a confusingly timed bit of news suggesting the “card check” provision of the bill is dead. That’s not the case — we hear constant stories about folks up on Capitol Hill trying to re-brand EFCA because it has become, in the words of Sen. Tom Harkin, “toxic.”

So we recently weighed in with a reference to The Usual Suspects, adding our two cents to musings by our friends at Shopfloor.org. Now we want to draw your attention to analysis of EFCAreport.com, the great resource from McKenna Long & Aldridge management attorneys. They write:

The response to the Times story was immediate and forceful. Business interests and EFCA opponents quickly condemned the possible development and began to focus more intense criticism on EFCA’s mandatory interest arbitration provisions.

Lest it be lost in the shuffle, however, there appears to have been a simultaneous increased effort on the part of labor to re-brand the mechanism proposed by Section 2 of EFCA as “majority sign-up.” While that has been terminology used by supporters for some time, and increasingly as labor realized how politically toxic the term “card-check” had likely become. But in the wake of Friday’s developments, there appears to be a stronger and more concerted effort to change the vocabulary of the discussion on this particular issue — perhaps to soften it politically while we await the ultimate announcement of what comes next. We shall see as the conversation continues.

Click through for their links and to check out the blog.

“The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” It’s a scheme that worked for the devil, for the speaker of this quote in The Usual Suspects, and the increasingly-toxic card check provision of the Employee Free Choice Act.

First it was the canard that EFCA didn’t eliminate secret ballots. It is just a plain fact: once union organizers collect more than 50 percent of union cards — even if employees were uninformed, under-informed, misinformed, or “nudged” as they signed — the National Labor Relations Board cannot direct an election. It’s a myth that has been busted again and again, but like all great lies it continues on among the darkest corners of the Internet (and a few of our own lesser-hinged commenters).

But now it seems that rumors of card check’s death have been greatly exaggerated for a specific purpose (or several). Our friends at Shopfloor.org have been tracking the mysteriously timed pronouncement of card check’s death, even while Beltway insiders say it’s not so. So herein the latest analysis from Shopfloor:

The flogging of the “Senate Dems drop card check” story to the New York Times certainly brought renewed attention to the Employee Free Choice Act’s political prospects, which was probably the goal of the labor lobbyist(s) who were pushing the news. At least people are talking about the bill now instead of just assuming the whole thing is dead. Smart.

Plus they have a roundup of more analysis.

All this makes sense: have a bad product that people don’t like? Just tell them the big lie. Tell them it doesn’t exist. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

Card check is not dead and EFCA still contains binding arbitration — a method that would allow government bureaucrats to effectively run employment decisions for small business. No,EFCA is not dead, and neither is the fight against it.

The Wall Street Journal this morning writes:

Labor is desperate to rig the bargaining rules because most workers show time and again that they don’t want a union. Americans know unions promise higher wages and benefits and more job security. But workers can also see what has happened to such highly unionized industries as steel, autos, airlines and many others. Unions couldn’t save those jobs, and in fact they contributed to their demise with contracts that made the industries uncompetitive. Most workers would also rather not hand over a chunk of their paycheck in mandatory dues to finance the political agenda of labor leaders.

Democrats and the AFL-CIO are hoping that if they dump the unpopular secret ballot ban from card check, they can get to their magic number of 60 Senators. The business community and Republicans shouldn’t be fooled and let Democrats from swing states off the hook. Card check under any cover is still a job killer.

That’s the thought over at Shopfloor, where Carter Wood writes on the curious appearance of yesterday’s front-page New York Times article on dropping card check from the sadly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act:

Here’s a theory, admittedly paranoid and probably giving labor too much credit: The NYT story represents a two-part jujitsu strategy by labor. Labor claims outrage at this “compromise,” but the removal of card check prompts business to emphasize how toxic the binding arbitration provisions are. THEN, labor agrees to drop binding arbitration too, leaving business sputtering about how the remaining legislation is still bad but struggling to articulate why. With business politically neutered, the Senate passes a bill with ambush elections, a gag on employer involvement in the election process, and increased penalties. Unions still wind up with a new ability to intimidate employees into joining unions and an election process slanted toward labor.

We wouldn’t call that compromise, either.