It is hard to imagine a more mis-named act then the Employee Free Choice Act. As I said in a previous post, it removes free choice by taking away the right for employees to vote on unionization in secret ballots. The act is nothing more then a grossly hypocritical attempt by Democrats to pay off their Union ATM's who themselves are trying to stem their ever declining membership due to irrelevance. Never one to let reality or facts stand in the way of shilling for a liberal cause, Pinch Salzberger's New York Times ran an editorial today repeating Democratic and AFL-CIO talking points. The Union-Free Employer blog has taken significant issue with the editorial. They seem to think that it is in serious need of an extensive fact check, and obligingly provide one here.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
The NYT Shills for Democrats on the Employee Free Choice Act
Monday, March 5, 2007
Obama and the Erosion of Democracy
No more transcending! Obama takes an important domestic policy position. Specifically, he pledges "We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. ... We may have to wait for the next president to sign it, but we will get this thing done." The idea of requiring a union, without a secret ballot election, if labor organizers can obtain a majority of "cards" from employees seems like both a big idea and a bad idea. If Republicans were smart and confident, wouldn't they make a big deal of this--drag the debate in Congress out to give it more prominence, highlighting Obama's support for this change which (more than any tax cut) would alter the very texture of the economy? Voters--even many socially liberal peacenik voters--traditionally worry that if Dems gain full power they will a) serve their special interests and b) cripple American capitalism in a fit of leftish nostalgia. This bill legitimately triggers both fears. ... P.S.: I don't think this is an endorsement Obama had to make for political reasons. As Dick Morris says, he's sitting pretty--he can be anything he wants to be. He could be a lot more Gary Hartish! He must want to be an old-fashioned unionizer. [But he has to win the Iowa caucuses, dominated by unions--ed Teachers' unions! They're already organized. They don't need no stinking card-check.** As for New Hampshire--look what the unions did for Mondale in 1984. ... And if Obama doesn't really believe in the card-check, wouldn't it still be smart for the GOPs to make him pay a price for selling out to the unions? That's a lot more important sign that he's a business-as-usual pol than his failure to repudiate David Geffen for taking some heartfelt shots at the Clintons.. ... ]
Imagine with me, for a moment, that we are standing at a voting station in Florida. Two large men wearing "vote Republican" buttons come to a woman just in front of us, hand her a ballot, and tell her to make her choice as they stand watching her, and possibly even explaining to her why voting Republican would be a good idea.
Is that functional democracy? Is there a good chance that the woman might feel intimidated? Is that a clear violation of our rights as Americans to vote without interference or coercion? Would the Democrats throw the mother of all hissy fits -- not to mention filing lawsuits charging voter intimidation -- if the Republicans pulled this stunt in Florida? Why, yes, of course, to all of those questions. And most Americans of both parties would support the Democrats cry of "foul" because it violates what we know to be fundamental notions of fair play and the democratic process.
So why then do the Democrats feel it appropriate to inaugurate precisely this type of overtly flawed voting system in regards to unions by passing the wholly inaccurately named bill, the "Employee Free Choice Act?" That is not exactly a mystery. As I posted here, this is a cynical act of payback on a massive scale to Unions that gave multiple millions of dollars to the '06 Democratic election campaigns. The fact that what the "progressive" Democrats are proposing is truly both anti-business and a regressive affront to American democratic principles has not slowed them one bit. They seem comfortable with their hypocrisy writ large.
What surprised me was that Obama has fully embraced this atrocity. Mickey Kaus at Slate has the whole story, with commentary:
Hattip: Instapundit
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
UNIONS COLLECTING THEIR DUES FROM DEMOCRATS
Having helped get the Democrats back in power, the Unions are calling in their favors, and the Democrats are responding -- putting forth a bill that would weaken national security but strengthen big labor, and in another bill, essentially doing away with democracy in the unionizing process.
As this article points out, in the House and Senate bills ostensibly implementing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission:As a big payback to . . . powerful union bosses, the Democratic bill include[s] language that overturns rules disallowing the Transportation Security Administration's 43,000 airport screeners from unionizing.
Congress created the TSA post-9/11 to fix airports' deficient security. But it prohibited collective bargaining precisely because it was known that it would compromise screeners' nimbleness and ability to respond to varying security demands.
And that move came shortly after congressional Democrats' successful efforts to strip from the Port Security Act a measure the International Longshoremen's Association considered bothersome.
Passed while Congress was still Republican-held, the law originally featured an amendment by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) imposing a seven-year-freeze on hiring dock workers convicted of murder, bribery, identity fraud, illegal-firearms possession and other crimes.
Democrats, led in part by Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), successfully stripped the provision during House-Senate conference committee.
You have to love the Democrats. If you are a friend of theirs, there is nothing you can't ask for. Even if it will clearly impact on national security. And then there is the Employee Free Choice Act:Labor unions hope this exquisitely mistitled act, which the House of Representatives probably will pass this week, will compensate for their dwindling persuasiveness as they try to persuade workers to join. 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.
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.
There are, however, ample protections against employer pressures that really are abusive. Tellingly, the act would forbid employers from trying to influence -- pressure? -- employees by improving their lot: It would fine employers that, to reduce the incentive to unionize, give workers "unilateral" -- not negotiated -- improvements in compensation or working conditions during attempts at unionization. Clearly, the act aims less to help workers than to herd them as dues-payers into unions.
Under the card-check system, unions are able to, in effect, select the voters they want. It strips all workers of privacy and exposes them, one at a time, to the face-to-face pressure of union organizers who distribute and collect the cards. The Supreme Court has said that the card-check system is "admittedly inferior to the election process."
Repealing a right -- to secret ballots -- long considered fundamental to democratic culture would be a radical act. But labor is desperate.
Read the whole article from George Will. This one is beyond the pall.
Update: Powerline is following this one. They report that the Not Quite Free Choice Act passed the House by 228-183 with only 2 democrats breaking ranks.Only two Dems were willing to stand up to the unions' pressure, Gene Taylor of Mississippi and Dan Boren of Oklahoma. Keep that in mind next time you hear nonsense in the press about "Blue Dog" Democrats, "conservative" Democrats, and next time you hear anyone try to tell you that the Democrats care anything about working men and women.
Read the whole post here. The Hill is following up the battle in the senate over the 9-11 legislation that contains the provisions allowing unionization of TSA workers. See there article here.
