So far Barack Obama has surprised supporters and opponents alike
by choosing centrists for his economic and foreign policy teams.
The leading exception is Labor Secretary-designate Rep. Hilda
Solis, a long-time supporter of coercive unionism. The
principal congressional battle is likely to be over so-called
card check, which would allow Big Labor to intimidate its way to
increased power.
People obviously should be free to join unions. But the vast
majority of Americans choose not to do so, which is why organized
labor represents only 7.5 percent of private sector workers.
Of course, Big Labor blames everyone else for its troubles. Evil
employers. Economic woes. Unfair laws. So union officials want to
fix the game.
Labor relations should be left up to companies and workers, with
the government simply enforcing agreements and prohibiting
violence. However, unions routinely attempt to win through
politics what they cannot win through economics.
Current law requires that unions win a representation election to
force recognition. Collecting cards signed by 30 percent of
employees triggers a vote.
However, unions lose 40 percent of the time, so labor activists
complain that America is, well, a bit like Nazi Germany. The
AFL-CIO says that “workers still lack the freedom to form unions”
and companies are blocking “workers’ freedom to form unions and
bargain for a better life” and “putting corporate power ahead of
the freedom to form unions.”
Labor activists prefer to collect cards than contest elections.
Then employers have little opportunity to inform workers about
the costs of unionization. Moreover, organizers know which
workers have been naughty or nice, and can employ a variety of
tools of “persuasion” to win signatures. The AFL-CIO organizing
handbook admits that employees often sign cards to “get the union
off my back.”
But unions use more than social pressure. Warns Carl Horowitz at
the National Legal and Policy Center, card check “opens workers
up to undue pressure from union reps and fellow workers who
support them.” The U.S. Chamber of Commerce observes that “the
annals of NLRB case law are packed full of examples where card
check elections have been challenged on coercion,
misrepresentation, forgery, fraud, peer pressure, and promised
benefits.”
Frustrated employees report harassing phone calls, groups of
union organizers visiting workers’ homes, and threats of
violence. For instance, Karen M. Mayhew, a Kaiser Permanente
employee, complains of “badgering and immense peer pressure.”
Mike Ivey of the Freightliner Custom Chassis Corporation told the
National Right Work Legal Defense Foundation that “relentless”
union organizers “created a hostile work environment” and
misrepresented the significance of signing the cards.
There is little the government can do to protect employees. All
told, argue James Sherk and Paul Kersey of the Heritage
Foundation: “Cards collected under those circumstances often do
not reflect employees’ free choice. Consequently card-check
allows union activists to organize plants where a majority of
workers oppose the union.” In practice, secret ballot elections
remain the ultimate defense for workers.
Of course, Big Labor claims otherwise. Union lawyer Aaron Knapp
said the legislation “does not affect the option to hold a secret
ballot NLRB election,” even though the explicit goal of labor
activists is to preempt a vote. For instance, Stewart Acuff of
the AFL-CIO says: “Elections just don’t work.” Bruce Raynor of
UNITE HERE argues that “There’s no need to subject the workers to
an election.”
As a result, union lobbyists are pushing the hilariously misnamed
“Employee Free Choice Act.” The AFL-CIO contends that it wants to
“level the playing field for workers looking to form unions” by
stopping them from voting. If 50 percent plus one of the workers
sign a card, the union will be automatically recognized. Thus,
organized labor can easily intimidate its way to victory. The
bill should be called the “Employee No Choice Act.”
Explained Gerald W. McEntee, president of the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees, the bill is “payback.”
He added, “Unions paid their dues by supporting Democrats and
President-elect Barack Obama in this year’s election.” This
explains the nomination of Rep. Solis.
IF APPROVED — in 2007 a Senate filibuster launched by a much
stronger Republican caucus killed the bill — card check would
bolster union ranks and budgets. For instance, Andy Stern, head
of the Service Employees International Union, which has been
caught up in the Rod Blagojevich scandal, forecasts that ECFA
would cause unions to “grow by 1.5 million members a year, not
just for five years but for 10 to 15 straight years.” Increased
labor revenues would run in the billions of dollars.
That’s a lot of extra cash. Some of it undoubtedly would go for
more organization campaigns. Warns Jack Welch, formerly of
General Electric, the result could be “a surge in unionization
across U.S. industry — and in time, a reversion to the bloated
economy that brought America to its knees in the late 1970s and
early '80s and that today cripples much of European business.” It
is hard to imagine a worse time for a turn towards economic
stasis, with the U.S. in recession and a multitude of companies
seeking public bail-outs.
Much of new union money would go into politics. Organized labor
spent nearly a half billion dollars in 2008. The unions didn’t
expend that money for altruistic reasons. Earlier this year, Bill
Darling, the AFL-CIO’s legislative director, predicted that a
Democratic presidential victory “could be an opportunity for
historic change.”
Big Labor’s basic agenda is to mulct money from the rest of us.
One goal is to further tilt labor law towards union-organizers.
Along with card check organized labor wants to impose contracts
through arbitration, an enormous shift of power away from market
to government.
Union leaders also want to overturn decisions of the NLRB on such
esoteric issues as the definition of supervisors, who are exempt
from bargaining requirements. Union lobbyists have been pushing
to prohibit companies from replacing strikers — who have walked
off of their jobs. Organized labor backs legislation to unionize
federal security personnel at the Transportation Security Agency,
as well force states and localities to allow unionization of
public safety employees. Labor also wants to cripple the Office
of Labor Management Standards, which monitors union spending and
corruption (convictions were up 20 percent last year).
Moreover, the modern labor movement has become highly
redistributionist. Organized labor has been pressing for an auto
industry bailout. It opposes consumer-oriented health care and
supports nationalizing the medical system. Union leaders oppose
reforming Social Security to give workers individual accounts.
Organized labor wants to mandate paid family leave and create a
new legal spoils system in the name of combating gender salary
discrimination.
Big Labor backs higher taxes and almost all federal spending
programs. Unions lobby incessantly to limit free trade and raise
the minimum wage, which limits competition from lesser skilled
workers. Organized labor has allied itself with the personal
injury bar, opposing tort reform.
UNION OPPORTUNITIES for looting will only grow in the new bailout
state. For instance, labor activists, backed by the usual
Democratic politicians and left-wing activists, used the federal
bank bailout to effectively shake
down Bank of America to continue lending to a bankrupt firm.
President-elect Barack Obama is likely to be even more
susceptible to pleas from his political allies for financial aid
and support.
No wonder a recent Gallup poll found that only one-third of
Americans want unions to have more influence. Even union members
overwhelmingly support secret ballot elections. A Zogby poll
found that union members support representation elections by an
overwhelming margin of 84 to 11 percent.
Ironically, the best argument against the card check “Forced
Unionization Act” comes from its supporters. For instance, labor
activists do believe in elections when workers are seeking to
decertify unions. Citing the U.S. Supreme Court, the AFL-CIO
argues “that a representation election ‘is a solemn…occasion,
conducted under safeguards to voluntary choice.’” Moreover, the
“representation election system provides the surest means of
avoiding decisions which are ‘the result of group pressures and
not individual decision.’”
Seven years ago Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the chief House
sponsor of card check, joined 15 other House members to urge
Mexico “to use the secret ballot in all union recognition
elections.” The legislators claimed that “increased use of the
secret ballot in union recognition elections will help bring real
democracy to the Mexican workplace.”
Two years ago Rep. Solis was involved in a bitter dispute within
the congressional Hispanic Caucus and complained that the new
chairman was not chosen through a secret ballot. “It is important
that the integrity of the [Caucus] be unquestioned and above
reproach,” she wrote in a multi-member letter to Caucus Chairman
Rep. Joe Baca.
Union officials hope to intimidate their way to victory. Giving
them greater power over the economy will make all of us poorer.
