As McQ discusses at length this is an Orwellian moniker for an Orwellian bill:
It would allow unions to organize workplaces without workers voting for unionization in elections with secret ballots. Instead, unions could use the “card check” system: Once a majority of a company’s employees signs a card expressing consent, the union is automatically certified as the bargaining agent for all the workers.
Hmm…..
Unions say the card-check system is needed to protect workers from anti-union pressure by employers before secret-ballot elections. Such supposed pressure is one of organized labor’s alibis for declining membership.
McQ did the real heavy lifting here, so I’ll keep my observation brief. I find it hard to understand how this can possibly protect workers from pressure by employers. With the ballot not being secret wouldn’t it allow more pressure? One would think so. In fact with a secret ballot how are employers able to pressure workers any more than unions?
So, my only conclusion is this is to allow more pressure, and the only reason unions want to allow more pressure is that they are confident that in an environment where there is an opportunity to easily pressure, threaten or otherwise use the knowledge of the vote against someone they will be the ones doing so. Or, at minimum, that they will be able to apply pressure more effectively.
So while I expect the politicians to cater to the unions, where are the liberals intellectuals objecting to this? Uh, they aren’t.
Why? Because under the current system employers can pressure people to not vote the unions way. I haven’t found any other argument really. No other options are discussed. “Companies plead their case and sometimes abuse that to fire or harass those they believe are behind the effort, so the cure is to make it easy for union goons to do the same, and with much more specificity. Unions however are wonderful and corporations are bad, so allowing workers to be squeezed by unions is good in the long run, and we won’t acknowledge that unions often abuse and intimidate workers anyway.” That seems to be the argument as best I can determine. Generally there is no argument. It is just asserted that the bill’s opposition is a bunch of vicious right wingers who want to destroy unions.
That is me, oppressor of the working class, there cannot be any other explanation.
Technorati Tags: unions, Democrats, liberals, Employee Free Choice Act
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Here are my concerns with the Employee Free Choice Act: Sometimes it seems that labor activists do not consider honest disagreement to be possible. Consider the rhetoric that labor has always used to advance its purposes. Any employer who prefers to remain non-union is a “union buster†and lumped in with the “bad actors.â€Cross a picket line – you’re a “scab.†Decline to pay union dues – you’re a “free rider.†Think unions have served their purpose? – you need a “frontal lobotomy.” Decide to work for management – you are, in the words of one pro-labor blogger, a “Turncoat Organizer [who] Drowns in Corporate Cash .†This type of rhetoric certainly gives one pause to consider whether an employee who declines to sign a card will be treated with respect by a union.
http://www.efcaupdates.com
need to get rid of that first strong tag.
Elliot,
Thanks for the link. I am checking out your site.
You are right of course. Much of what is called intimidation is merely showing the other side. In addition, much intimidation is excused the other way.
If employer manipulation is really such a problem, then wouldn’t it make sense to address reforms that limit that without exposing workers to other forms of intimidation? That leads me to believe it isn’t intimidation that is the issue, but the ability of unions, regardless of the effect upon the free choices of workers, to become more successful in their efforts.
Chris,
Good thing we have you hanging around. That is twice today.
Eh, what else have I got to do? Work?