1/14/2009

The EFCA Is A Bad Deal For Workers

It seems the Democrats will waste little time after President Elect Obama's inauguration to put forward legislation that will allow unions to more easily push their into businesses that neither require nor deserve unions.

The EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as “Card Check”, will effectively do away with secret ballots that will allow employees to exercise their rights to express their desire to form a union or not. While the labor unions claim businesses use the secret ballot as a means to intimidate their workers into voting against the union, card check makes it far easier for unions to intimidate employees to 'vote' for a union whether the really want one or not. Their contention that businesses have had their way when it comes to union votes is belied by the fact that over 60% of labor attempts to organize have been successful.

But big labor isn't interested in facts. They are looking for one thing and one thing only: power. Never mind that they really don't have the best interests of their members in mind. As long as they can dictate to business how they will do business, they can control the economy. And if you're interested how that would work all, all one needs to do is look to Europe to see how the labor unions have slowed sections of the economies, with work rules and layoff policies so draconian that most business are reluctant to hire new laborers because they know they won't be able to lay them off if the economy cools. (This is a poor example, but the only one that comes immediately to mind.) I've seen how this can happen, having been a union member for 20 years. And the union I belonged to was tame as compared to the one the Big Three automakers have to deal with – the UAW. The work rules I and my fellow members had to deal with were a drag on production, where entire production lines would sit idle because someone with the proper job description wasn't around to move a pallet or throw a switch or open a door. It was stupid. The only reason the company I worked for survived this was because they were not a commercial operation but a defense contractor. Had they been a commercial manufacturer they would have gone out of business a couple of decades ago if they had to function under the work rules we were saddled with.

As much as Big Labor says workers need unions more than ever, they are wrong. Much of what the unions were created to do and protect has been codified in law, making them far less necessary than in the past. They have become moot in many industries. In fact, there are very few areas where these days where unions are needed.

Should the “Card Check” law pass and be signed by President Obama, I have no doubt there will be legal challenges based upon the violation of certain constitutional rights, both of employees and employers.

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