Catastrophe - Dick Morris [57]
Of course, there’s a problem with all this: Most workers don’t want to join unions. So the labor bigwigs have figured out a way to coerce them into doing so—the union card-check system.
Under current law, workers in a company can sign cards asking the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hold an election to decide whether or not to unionize. If a majority of the workers sign the cards, the NLRB holds an election, by secret ballot, to determine the answer.
And, most often, the union winds up losing the election, even though a majority of the workforce signed cards asking for the election. Why would workers who oppose a union sign the cards? Normally they wouldn’t. But the labor organizers bring incredible pressure on them to sign, often visiting them at home, harassing them on the job, and pestering them for signatures. So obviously the union must be getting some of those who actually oppose unionization to sign cards calling for a vote.
Brian Wilson of Fox News reported on one small auto parts plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that “got a first hand lesson on card-check. The employer acquiesced on card-check and the union got the votes it needed. Afterward, the truth came out as employees complained about the aggressive harassing and coercive tactics used by union organizers. The company appealed and a secret vote was held, and the workers voted not to unionize.”192
Under the card-check bill, labor organizers wouldn’t have to put up with the inconvenience of an election—certainly not one by secret ballot. The law provides that unionization will be decided not by secret ballot but by whether they can get a majority of workers to sign pledge cards—even those signed by twisted arms. (The law would allow an election only if 30 percent of the workers explicitly ask for one.)
Obama has specifically pledged to back the card-check bill, saying “I will make it the law of the land when I’m president of the United States.”193 But the potential for forcing employees to sign the cards to request a union is enormous.
Of course, coercion is a two-way street. Plenty of employers threaten their workers in order to deter them from supporting a union. John T. Palter, writing in the Dallas Morning News, points out that “some employers abuse the current system. It is, for example, notoriously easy, and relatively inexpensive, for an organization to terminate anyone they suspect of starting a union.”194 One good aspect of the card-check bill is that it strengthens worker protections, a badly needed step.
But employer coercion can go only so far with a secret ballot. When the boss doesn’t know who voted for a union, he can’t retaliate easily. But to eliminate the secret ballot—indeed to eliminate the ballot at all—would invite coercion from both sides.
In any event, as Palter notes, employer coercion isn’t “why unions are on the decline. The globalization of business operations, the decline of traditionally unionized industries, the increase in workplace safety and rising standards of living have all taken much bigger tolls on union membership than employer abuses.”195 And many of the traditional goals of unions—safe workplaces and limitations on hours—are now policed by the government, making unions less necessary. But the unions are using the excuse that there is coercion by employers to pass the card check bill so they can do their own coercing. The poor workers in the middle!
The card-check bill would also require that, once a union is formed, the company negotiate a contract with it. In the event that the two parties can’t come to an agreement, it provides for a government-appointed arbitrator to establish one by fiat. Since most of these arbitrators would probably be prounion (appointed by the Obama administration), the unions won’t negotiate in good faith but