When the Congress returns next year, one of the top priorities for them will be to pass the misleadingly titled bill, the Employee Free Choice Act.
This bill will eliminate privacy when voting for or against a union in your workplace. The Coalition for Workplace Democracy issued a press release (pdf) explaining why this is a very bad idea:
“We wanted to take the opportunity to remind members of Congress of the overwhelming opposition from the business community, their constituents and union households to this anti-worker legislation,” said Brian Worth with the Coalition for a
Democratic Workplace. “This bill is a job-killer and fundamentally undemocratic.”The letter also stated:
“This legislation poses not only an assault on an individual’s right to privacy, but a direct threat to economic growth and job creation. Particularly at a time of economic uncertainty, Congress should not enact measures that threaten our economic competitiveness, including the Employee Free Choice Act. Furthermore, this legislation would have a particularly devastating impact on small employers who are the primary source for new jobs in our economy.”
President-elect Obama’s Administration and the new Congress will face its first true test early next year in the form of the anti-worker Employee Free Choice Act — that allows unionization without secret ballots for workers. This Act, more aptly titled the Employee “Forced” Choice Act, is nothing short of a full-frontal assault on American
democracy and worker privacy. Backed by union special interests and their Congressional allies, the anti-worker bill would effectively strip employees of the right to vote in private when deciding whether or not to join a union.“It’s ironic that members of Congress, all of whom were just elected by secret ballot, would even consider legislation that would remove that right for millions of American workers,” added Worth.
Gateway Pundit notes the agenda of the Obama administration and the unions, and the inherit danger of union expansion:
In Europe the Unions are the number one agent of stagnation and resistance to change, able to paralyze entire nations with continued strikes while protecting the privileges of the few to the detriment of the majority. One of the top priorities of Obama’s is ending secret ballots in Union’s elections. Currently, when 50% of workers in a company sign statements to unionize, that merely sets up a second stage, where workers vote by secret ballot to determine if the company will be unionized. Under the new proposal, shared by Obama and his top aids, using a system called “Card Check,” unionization would occur as soon as half the workers had openly signed cards stating that they favor union representation so that it would be visible who had refused. Such an arrangement would pave the way for a significant expansion of unionization throughout the country, an important move that would ensure an enduring socialist rule even when Republicans returned to power.
Neal Boortz explains how this is a job killer:
Now just ask yourself .. what would you do if you were an employer and you felt that the Democrats were on the verge of passing the union’s “card check” bill. Well .. I’ll tell you what I would do. I would be looking at any automation that I could find that would reduce my workforce. I would then go with all of the offshore options I could find that would allow me to get rid of more employees. Then I would go to staffing agencies for the rest of my workforce. The people working in my place of business would not be working for me. They would be working for a staffing agency. If they want to unionize something, they can unionize the staffing agency. If the Democrats bring us “card check” along with an expansion of the Family Leave Act my guess is that there are a lot of employers out there who will do everything they can to get rid of employees.
Boortz makes a lot of sense. Look at what has happened to the auto makers. Automate a job and the worker who used to do that goes into the job bank, still making his salary, but now doing crossword puzzles.
How could the first African American President sign a bill which eliminates a person’s right to vote in private? Try to wrap your head around that for a minute.
