EFCA

What a Load of Crap!

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Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) has announced that he will oppose the misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” which he previously supported. That’s good news as far as I’m concerned because at least he’ll be nullifying the support given by  Senator Casey (D-PA) for the legislation.

What’s absurd is Change to Win chairperson Anna Burger’s statement about the Employee Free Choice Act.

The Employee Free Choice Act is a vital component to restoring our economy, rebuilding the middle class and renewing the American Dream for America’s workers. Allowing workers the choice to join together, free from intimidation and harassment, to bargain for job security, better wages and health care will stimulate our economy and put working families back on the path of prosperity. We will continue to work with Democrats and Republicans, including Sen. Specter, to pass this critical legislation and make our economy work for everyone.

Now that is a load of repulsively odiferous crap.

The statement about allowing workers to join together, free from intimidation and harassment is complete nonsense. They can already do that now, with less potential intimidation and harassment than they would be subjected to if this legislation would pass! Allowing the EFCA to pass would be like opening the virtual floodgates of uninhibited union harassment onto employees… with no repercussions… which is why unions desperately want this to pass. By taking away any practical chance of a secret ballot election, the EFCA would completely remove the current protection granted by anonymity, letting the union know exactly who it needs to target and where to apply the pressure, making harassment and intimidation its key tools. Getting employees to submit to union representation, willing or not, would never be easier.

The EFCA would remove employee choice, negate employee rights, and open a Pandora’s Box of harassment and intimidation abuses that haven’t been seen for decades.

And that is not good for the economy.

Employee Free Choice Act Opposition

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Ballot BoxI wrote a letter today to Senator Casey of Pennsylvania urging him to oppose the grossly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” which unions desperately want to pass in order to make unionization much, much easier. I say that the proposed legislation is grossly misnamed because it essentially removes an employee’s free choice in the matter by removing any anonymity from the unionization process.

Currently, when a union wants to get into a company, they need to get at least 30% of the employees to sign cards stating that they’d like union representation. After that, the company can decide to hold a secret ballot election to determine if a majority of employees want union representation. The company doesn’t have to hold the elections. They can just agree to union representation if they want, but that’s a rare (if not nonexistent) happening. Typically, unions try to get 50-60% of the employees to sign cards before moving on to the election in order to bolster their chances for success.

The EFCA effectively removes the secret ballot election, thereby removing any and all employee anonymity in the unionization process. Supporters claim that it does not remove the secret ballot elections and technically, they are correct. They say that it moves the choice of whether to have one from the company to the employees, giving the employees even more say in how the process works. The reality, however, is that they are gone.

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