It’s a “no” for the Employee Free Choice Act

Posted by University of New Mexico/Talk Radio News Service on February 23, 2009 |

by Christina Lovato, University of New Mexico-Talk Radio News Service

Today in a discussion titled “Consequences of the Employee Free Choice Act: Union and Management Perspectives” experts expressed why the act would not be beneficial to employees but harmful.

James Sherk, a Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation said, “The act replaces secret ballot organizing elections with card checks. It would also take the free collective bargaining out of the hands of the unions and employers.”

The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) was proposed on February 5, 2007, in the House by Chairman George Miller of the Education and Labor Committee. EFCA passed the House in March 2007 by a vote of 241-185 but then died in the Senate in June 2007. Since then, organized labor has made the EFCA its top legislative target.

Homer L. Deakins, Jr., Managing Shareholder at Ogletree Deakins, said that the bill is basically made up of two goals. “Its major objective is to deny employees a free choice and to substitute what has been a free choice by a secret ballot of election.” He went on to say that the second objective and purpose to this bill is to neutralize employers. “The only group that is a beneficiary of this law is organized labor. Everyone else gives up rights. The employer loses the right to basically make their case to the employees and it also says to employers that they will be penalized for misconduct during an organizing campaign in an effort to keep them neutral.”

February 23, 2009
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One Response to “It’s a “no” for the Employee Free Choice Act”

  1. Hilary Smith Says:
    February 24th, 2009 at 11:32 pm

    Workers are under much greater risk of intimidation from employers versus unions simply because to organize a union is a direct challenge to the absolute authority of an employer. Workers typically share the same interests. Of course it’s possible that unions will
    intimidate anti-union workers, but I don’t think you can argue that it’s unions, not employers, who will do the bulk of the harassing during an organization drive. The real question is weather it’s harder to stand up to a union effort or to your employer? Card check was the organizing method used during the first labor movements and unions became weakened when that ability to organize quickly and conspicuously was taken away. Also, the Employee Free Choice Act doesn’t take away the secret ballot. That claim is false. The
    Employee Free Choice Act will protect working-class people by making it easier to form a union (which means the ability for workers to bargain for better wages, job security, healthcare, retirement). That’s the reason business people hate it. When was the last time
    the business community went out of it’s way to stick up for the rights of workers? Good thing most of us have become wise to their shtick. Unions are the only reason we ever had a middle class. Every CEO enjoys the safety of a contract and so should every janitor. No
    person’s access to resources should be precarious and nobody should be disposable.

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