EFCA - Still Economic Poison

by Brad Peck

The New York Times reported this morning that a compromise is being worked out that would eliminate the card check provision from the Employee Free Choice Act in order to get EFCA out of the Senate. Certainly the card check provision has been political poison, I mean who wants to be the Senator who says no to secret ballot elections, but it is important to remember that the economic poison in the bill still remains.  A quick refresh:

To wit, the problem with the Employee Free Choice Act isn't merely the provision that would allow unions to organize a work site after collecting the signatures of a majority of workers...Equally as damaging, however, is a separate provision known as "binding arbitration." The more accurate term would be federal wage setting.

So what does this look like?

If a union and an employer cannot agree to their first contract in 120 days, the government will appoint a panel of arbitrators who will. Mandatory arbitration is devastatingly bad policy -- it throws a monkey wrench into the collective bargaining process.

How has that worked in the past?  In say...Michigan:

In 1969, the Wolverine State embraced a form of compulsory arbitration nearly identical to the one proposed in EFCA to resolve disputes with its police and firefighters. Years later, Detroit mayor Coleman Young -- who had authored the original law as state senator -- rued what he had done. "We now know that compulsory arbitration has been a failure," he lamented to the National Journal in 1981. "Slowly, inexorably, compulsory interest arbitration has destroyed sensible fiscal management and has caused more damage to the public service than the strikes it was designed to prevent."

Yikes!  Who would agree to such a thing?  Big Labor?

No International Union would agree to put its future members, its jurisdiction, and assets in the hands of an arbitrator. (Unite Here President John W. Wilhelm)

We hear ya John, and we agree:

The issue of government arbitrators telling an employer how to run their business is not something the employer community is going to accept.