Is ‘Card Check’ Really a Free Choice?
Todd Thurman /
Aside from the Stimulus Package, the Liberals in Congress have something else up their sleeve on their agenda. It is known as the “Employee Free Choice Act”, but names can be misleading. The premise of this bill is to “establish stronger penalties for violation of employee rights when workers seek to form a union and during first-contract negotiation.” However, the danger of this bill is laid out in Section 2: [Emphasis mine]
If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bargaining representative and that no other individual or labor organizations currently certified or recognizing as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative in the subsection.
What this means is that as long as a simple majority (50%+1) of authorized signatures, they will forgo elections by a secret ballot. Much has been said on this blog about the Employee Free Choice Act. But yesterday, the Center for Union Facts released a poll that stated that 82% of non-unionized workers do not want to be unionized.
The fact remains that the current system is not broken, it is just that people don’t want to be in unions. Only 12% of salaried workers were unionized in 2008. What does this mean? Well, Big Labor would like you to believe that it is because of unfair labor practices. If that is the case, why then, would they still want to get rid of the secret ballot. If a worker has the right to vote in a secret ballot on who they want to be the next American Idol, should not they also have the right to vote in a secret ballot whether or not they are unionized?
George McGovern has been an outspoken critic of The “Employee Free Choice Act” specifically because of the provision I highlighted. The simple formula is that Big Labor wants more members to get more people to pay union dues. The left wants more union dues because Unions contribute to liberal politicians. So is getting an employee to join a union, without an election, and forcing said employee to pay dues to a cause they may, or may not, agree with really free choice?