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

Those wascally wabits at the euphemistically named “American Rights At Work” labor front group are continuing in their mission to obfuscate about the effect of the equally euphemistic “Employee Free Choice Act.” In a letter, a spokesman claims: “The bill simply allows workers, not their bosses, to choose how they want to form a union.” Riiiight. Unless one has actually read the bill.

Elsewhere, more informed readers offer their own opinions. In the Tennessean, Todd Malone writes: “Facetiously speaking here, maybe we should urge our lawmakers to propose a bill called the Voters Free Choice Act. We could apply it to all elections. Our votes for public office and policy would be made known to everyone.”

One gentleman offers his decades of experience and concludes EFCA would be detrimental to workers:

As a member of the engineering staff, I was an interested spectator on four occasions when such organizing drives were undertaken at my place of employment. In each case, well more than a majority of all employees signed up as wanting to join the union in Step 1.

But, in the secret balloting, the unionization drive was soundly defeated. Four times.

The only way to determine the true feelings of those voting is by secret ballot. It is their right. And it must be preserved.

Republicans from Carson, Nevada are making no bones about their opposition to card check: “We support the right to work in Nevada, oppose card check in any form; if card check passes in Congress, we demand that the governor and legislators join in any legal opposition to card check legislation..”

And one guys has several salient facts to consider:

Union membership should be voluntary, not forced. Union bosses spent hundreds of millions of dollars to elect this president and Congress, and they are demanding payback. The president has frequent visits by union big shots such as Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, who has his sights on nurses and doctors as a prime target, if President Barack Obama’s health care law is passed. Private-sector unions lost about 10 percent of their membership last year. Some of these people would not put up with the radical political agenda Big Labor exposes.

The Birmingham News has a great take on union density figures and the need for card check in that an increase in the former means a decrease in the rationale for the latter.

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.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has just about the best roundup of this year’s drive by organized labor to push a radical agenda which includes, of course, card check, Craig Becker’s nomination for the NLRB, and socialized medicine.

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.

Despite the positive signs that elected leaders right now have little appetite for card check and the Employee Free Choice Act, Investors Business Daily reminds readers:

The legislation, which failed in Congress in 2007, was a priority a year ago for the young administration. But the public didn’t like it, and neither did a few Democratic senators. It appeared to be dead.

In reality, though, it’s merely wounded. The unions want card check to be part of a federal jobs bill. Another reason to kill legislation that won’t create or save any meaningful private-sector jobs.

Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus once said of card check legislation: “This is how a civilization disappears.” He may be exaggerating a bit. But he’s not far off.

It would certainly be cynical to include jobs-killing language in jobs legislation.

The Arkansas News weighs in against the nomination of Craig Becker, a top lawyer for the AFL-CIO and SEIU, to join the National Labor Relations Board:

Presidents deserve wide latitude in filling executive branch positions. But given his far-left philosophical leanings, the possibility that Mr. Becker would use the post to help organized labor impose its agenda through the back door without congressional consent is a real concern.

Mr. Becker’s nomination will likely come up as soon as this week. If they stick together, Senate Republicans have the ability to ensure it’s DOA — and that’s precisely what they should do.

Agreed!

The August Chronicle says of the Craig Becker nomination for the National Labor Relations Board: “Not without a fight!”