Employee Free Choice Act – NOT!
You better be quick and hop to, why because those who say they have all the answers have once again spoken; and this time they have deemed that the American worker must, absolutely must have the Employee Free Choice Act signed into law. To fail to enact this important, to hear them speak of it, act would be to rob the American worker of freedoms they do not currently enjoy. However, those who support the passage of this act, including our erstwhile President Obama and his Secretary of Labor nominee Congresswoman Hilda Solis, know that it’s not so much about free choice but more about the removal of the secret ballot from the American worker. Unions, just like their adversary employers, each have a vested interested in workers choosing to have or reject unionization. However, over the past decades unions have seen their membership rolls continue to thin out, except in California, with public-sector jobs being some of the few growth areas for unions.
So committed are the proponents of the Employee Free Choice Act that they descended on DC this week to lobby for this Act’s passage and to deliver a petition with one million signatures in support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Now, I know that one million may seem like a large number, but keep in mind that there are approximately 16 million union members, and a untold numbers of non-union employees; so one million signatures is hardly a resounding endorsement of support. At the very least the union should’ve been able to deliver 16 million signatures or failing that 8 million. But one million signatures is just pitiful, but it does make an argument for Congress to quash the Act, because if union’s that have been the loudest advocates for this Act could get a petition with so few signatures then it would appear that the American workers prefers to retain their freedom to a secret ballot.
Supports of the Employee Free Choice Act like to argue that it only streamline the current system, but even Gov. George McGovern (one of the stalwarts of the Democratic party) has come out against it (to read his Wall Street Journal Op-Ed). He even went so far as to film a commercial asking, no begging, that the Democratic party should not become the party that takes away an employee’s right to a secret ballot. Click here to see his commercial . Of course supporters of the Act would argue that signing a card signifying the desire to join a union is equal, if not better, then the current secret vote. They even argue that in past unionization actions they have been bewildered at vote outcomes that reject the union when they can produce numerous cards showing that workers express an interest in a union. Of course there is vast difference between expressing an interest in joining a union versus actually choosing to join a union. I can express an interest in purchasing a Maserati but that doesn’t mean I’m going to buy one.
