BLS Stats Expose Card Check as a Power Grab in Search of a Problem

by Steven Law

Organized labor is running ads claiming that current labor laws prevent them from signing up new members.  Too bad the facts aren’t cooperating.  Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting that 428,000 more workers joined unions last year, the largest such jump since the Bureau began keeping track in 1983.

So if union membership is growing at a healthy clip and unions typically win well over half of workplace elections, why do they need the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act"?  The answer is simple: unions want the ability to organize on the cheap by stripping workers of a secret ballot and putting the government in charge of union contracts.

And as usual, it all boils down to politics and money: AFSCME head Gerald McEntee called Card Check a "payback" for organized labor’s 2008 election efforts. The unions get the power to conduct quick-and-dirty organizing, while workers are stripped of a private vote and subjected to binding contracts without a vote.  To top it all off, the bill would impose one-sided penalties that would only encourage questionable "recruitment methods" by union organizers.

Today’s BLS numbers reveal that Card Check is a power grab in search of a problem, as unnecessary as it is unsavory in terms of diluting worker protections and threatening American jobs.

Comments

[Susan Podiak]

I would encourage you to read the Wall Street Journal opinion from Feb. 2, 2009 'How the Government Prolonged the Depression'. The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) was the government setting wages and prices 25% higher than what the prevailing wage was. That sounds great, higher wages except for the fact that companies couldn't handle the increase and if you were not lucky enough to be one of the people hired at these inflated wages you were in worse shape, unable to pay the 25% increase in prices. Hence, the economy collapsed again in the later 30's instead of growing. Wanting Government to control business to make it more "fair" calls to mind the old adage "Be careful what you wish for".

[ChamberPost]

See quotes from the two posts below, exactly how much more level can you get?

"95.1% of all initial elections were conducted within 56 days of the filing of the petition.

Initial elections in union representation elections were conducted in a median of 38 days from the filing of the petition."

"Unions won 62 percent of those elections from October 2007 to March 2008, the last period reported by the NLRB"

http://www.chamberpost.com/2008/11/swift-efficient-elections.html

http://www.chamberpost.com/2008/12/card-checkocracy.html

[Richard Evans]

After decades of anti worker anti Union Republicans and some Democrats it will be nice to level the playing field for the average
working people so EFCA is a great thing for workers and america on many different levels!
Hey it will help the health care system also
as non union workers generally have no H.C.
even on prevailing wage jobs.