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October 22, 2008
Obama and the Appalling Employee Free Choice Act
Posted by Dave Blount at October 22, 2008 10:07 AM
Unionization is a cancer that has paralyzed whole industries (e.g., the American auto industry) and economically crippled whole states (e.g., Michigan). Under Obama, unions would become vastly more powerful, as Peter Kirsanow reports:
As the election approaches employers are becoming increasingly nervous about the very real prospect that the Employee Free Choice Act ("EFCA") will be signed into law next year. Smart money says that some form of EFCA will be one of the first bills Obama signs — perhaps as early as February.
EFCA is arguably the most profound change in labor law in 70 years. Most of the focus has been on the "card check" provision. That provision substantially dispenses with secret ballot representation elections conducted by the National Labor Relations Board. Instead, unions need only present authorization cards signed by a majority of bargaining unit employees to be certified as the collective bargaining representative.
Doing away with secret ballots facilitates the thuggery unions have always been known for. Don't want to sign the authorization card, huh? Cute kids you've got, I often see them standing at the bus stop. It would be ashame if…
It gets worse:
As nervous as employers are about card check, it's EFCA's first contract mandatory arbitration provisions that have businesses ordering antacids by the truckload. Under EFCA, if the company and union fail to reach agreement on a contract within 120 days after the union requests bargaining, the matter will be referred to an arbitration panel that will actually write the contract. That contract is binding for two years. I've negotiated more collective bargaining agreements than I can remember, but I can't remember too many times when an agreement was reached on an initial contract in four months. It sometimes takes that long just to agree upon the shape of the table.
What if an arbitrator mandates a wage scale that makes the employer uncompetitive? What if the arbitrator puts the company into a pension plan that renders the company unmarketable? Can the arbitrator require interest arbitration in exchange for a no-strike clause? The questions are interminable.
One thing is beyond question: Barack Obama and his core acolytes who are aware of his background but support him anyway are profoundly hostile to our capitalist system. The process of tearing it down will be painful for us all.
But on the bright side, union members will get paid to take 8-hour coffee breaks, up until their employers go bankrupt.
On a tip from V the K.
