U.S. small businesses to rebuild middle class the Obama Way - via instant, no-vote unionizationFor decades, workers’ decisions on whether to unionize have been expressed in secret-ballot elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. At stake in the presidential campaign is whether to do away with that process — by passing a misnamed bill called the Employee Free Choice Act.
Unfortunately, the issue hasn’t drawn much attention even though the candidates hold opposite positions. Barack Obama is in favor of the bill. John McCain is against. No doubt McCain has avoided raising the issue for fear of alienating supporters who happen to be union members. But polls consistently show overwhelming opposition to the measure.
Under the Employee Free Choice Act, a workplace could be unionized if union organizers persuade a majority of the workers to sign cards to that effect. Once that happens, there would be no need for an election in which workers express their views in private.
Even George McGovern, the Democratic presidential nominee in 1972, has come out against the idea. “We cannot be a party that strips working Americans of the right to a secret-ballot election,” McGovern wrote in a Wall Street Journal article. “We are the party that has always defended the rights of the working class. To fail to ensure the right to vote free of intimidation and coercion from all sides would be a betrayal of what we have always championed.”
Certainly, some companies have such lousy labor relations that they deserve to deal with unions. But given the opportunity for face-to-face intimidation and pressure, EFCA — also called the card-check bill — would greatly increase the number of union shops in the country, retarding economic growth.
It’s no accident that many of the innovations we take for granted today largely arose from companies that were not unionized. Unions oppose technological changes that upset the status quo. They seek to keep work confined within existing categories. They undermine productivity, the source of rising living standards.
As blogger Mickey Kaus aptly put it, unions are “engines of adversarial bureaucracy and the mainspring of the wage-price spiral.”
The card-check bill would open workers to peer pressure from their fellow employees or intimidation by union organizers.
If EFCA ended at card-check, it would be bad enough. But the bill also mandates binding arbitration if union and management fail to agree on an initial contract. Coming up with an initial contract often takes many months. The bill, however, would give the two sides only 90 days.
When the clock runs out, federal officials would be called in to mediate. If mediation fails, the dispute would go to binding arbitration, a process that would drastically tip the balance in favor of labor. Instead of bargaining in good faith, union negotiators could simply wait out the 90 days, knowing they’ll probably get a better deal from arbitrators with no stake in the future of the business.
Card-check passed in the House in 2007 after the Democrats took over, but stalled in the Senate. If the coming election is a worse-than-expected disaster for Republicans, and Democrats pick up six or seven seats in the Senate, making filibusters impossible, the card-check bill could become a reality.
This is one more reason why I think Obama is not right for the presidency. With the next Congress expected to be even more Democratic and liberal than the current one, a president from the opposing party — McCain — is needed to balance the worst instincts of the congressional majority.
Given the stakes involved, it’s a shame this issue hasn’t been aired more thoroughly.
- E. Thomas McClanahan
(kansascity.com)
