The Dangers of “Card Check”: Stop Forced Unionization
The following is copied from an email sent by GOPUSA...
What would you say if Congress was about to pass just ONE LAW that would PERMANENTLY force YOU to fund the radical left-wing Obama-Pelosi agenda?
And, what if we told you that the same law would force the rationing of your paycheck to fund such an agenda?
Well, such a proposal exists and is being debated in Congress at this very moment. It is deceptively being called the Employee Free Choice Act - more commonly known as "Card Check."
If you thought "Card Check" was simply a liberal payoff to Big Labor, think again.
In actuality, "Card Check" represents a greater threat to your freedoms than even the so-called Fairness Doctrine (which would silence Rush and conservative thoughts and opinions on the airwaves)!
If you want to know the details... if you want to know HOW "Card Check" is a threat to YOUR bottom line and your family's way of life... then READ ON.
If you want to know EXACTLY how "Card Check" WILL FORCE YOU TO FUND THE RADICAL FAR-LEFT OBAMA-PELOSI AGENDA... then READ ON!
But for now, know that it is imperative that we STOP this freedom-crushing, job-killing legislation dead in its tracks. We must STOP it NOW!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
How Will Card Check Force YOU To Fund The Agenda Of The Far-Left?
The Heritage Foundation explains how the system presently works and how "Card Check" will tip the balance.
"For more than 60 years, American workers have decided whether to form a union with a private vote... neither management nor union organizers know how each individual worker voted. The secret ballot lets workers vote their conscience without risking job loss or physical assault for making the 'wrong' choice... . The EFCA would make it easier for union officials to pressure workers. Under the card-check process, union organizers would publicly solicit signatures on union authorization cards... Without secret ballots, union organizers know exactly who has signed union cards and who has not. In the past, union organizers have repeatedly approached and pressured-and, in some cases, threatened-reluctant workers. They have also used pro-union co-workers to solicit signatures, putting peer pressure on 'holdouts' to change their minds."
So what's the big deal?
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich explains just why such a change is a radical threat to your bottom line:
"Under Card Check, union organizers and their enforcers will be able to go into any small business, hospital or construction site and coerce workers into signing cards. If they get 50 percent plus one, the deal's done, and the workers are forced into a union. And if management and the new union fail to reach a negotiated contract, the federal government will just impose one. Coerced unionization allows for what is effectively a new, unaccountable form of forced taxation. Workers will have a portion of their paycheck going to the union to be spent as the bosses see fit, including political donations to parties and candidates that the workers may not even support."
Let's put that in more personal terms.
Let's say that union organizers come into YOUR workplace and through coercion or peer-pressure - or even physical intimidation - "convince" a simple majority of your co-workers to form a union.
At that point you only have two choices. You either join the union or face job termination. You can't opt-out!
And once you "join" the union, you are FORCED to pay union dues. Again, you cannot opt-out. You have no choice in the matter, and the union dues will come directly out of each and every paycheck you receive!
Not only will you have no choice but to have those union dues taken out of your paycheck every week, you will have little or no say in how those dues are spent!
How your hard-earned money gets spent will be up to the whims of union bosses. And make no mistake, your hard-earned money -- this new-found windfall that the union will ration from your paychecks -- will go, in large part, to fund advocacy for the very left-wing causes that you find repugnant.
But that's not all. When the union tells you to strike... you strike... no unemployment benefits... just a meager strike fund that does not even come close to paying the bills...
.. during such a strike, you can't go to work until a union boss tells you it is okay -- NO IFS, ANDS OR BUTS!
Perhaps that's why, according to polls cited by Gingrich, "77 percent of Republicans, 82 percent of Democrats and 79 percent of independents" oppose doing away with the secret balloting provisions that "Card Check" would ERADICATE!
But it gets worse. If the union bosses and the company management can't reach an agreement about your job, then bureaucrats in the Obama Administration would then FORCE an agreement on both parties.
In other words, government bureaucrats would be empowered to determine all aspects of your job -- even down to the compensation you make, regardless of any agreement you and your employer come to.
Heritage again:
"Section 3 of EFCA gives government officials the power to impose contracts on workers and firms. Government bureaucrats would set compensation and make most major business decisions at newly unionized companies. The bureaucrats writing these proposals would have no expertise in the company's operations or business model and would be unaccountable if their decisions drove the company into bankruptcy. Workers would lose all say over working conditions. EFCA would effectively create government-run workplaces."
To put it another way - and let's speak plainly here - if your boss doesn't knuckle-under to union demands, then some Obama appointee will simply step in and FORCE the union demands onto your employer!
That's essentially FASCISM!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
Will Unions Really Coerce You Into Joining The Union?
Heritage has a few things to say on the matter:
"During a card-check campaign at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, union organizers threatened that workers who did not sign union cards would lose their jobs when the union was recognized. In 2002, a long-time organizer for the United Steelworkers felt compelled to quit his job after 'a senior Steelworkers union official asked me to threaten migrant workers by telling them they would be reported to federal immigration officials if they refused to sign check-off cards.'"
And the above is not an isolated incident. Heritage cites yet another example:
"Hotel workers in Los Angeles, for example, had to seek an injunction against union organizers after groups of eight to ten of them harassed employees on their homes' porches late at night. A labor lawyer explained what happened to Trico Marine employees during another card-check drive... . Some employees, when solicited at their homes by union representatives, said, 'No,' to signing a card; yet, they reported repeated, frequent home visits by union representatives continuing to try to secure their signatures, and they complained to the company of this harassment. After 8 visits, one vessel officer in southern Louisiana had an arrest warrant issued against a union organizer.... Employees volunteered that they signed cards just to stop the pressure and harassment."
Of course, overt threats are not always necessary. Union officials are well-versed in psychological tactics that can be employed to deceive your co-workers into signing cards.
Heritage yet again:
"One former union organizer described the process in congressional testimony: They [organizers] are trained to perform a five-part house call strategy that includes: Introductions, Listening, Agitation, Union Solution, and Commitment. The goal of the organizer is to quickly establish a trust relationship with the worker, move from talking about what their job entails to what they would like to change about their job, agitate them by insisting that management won't fix their workplace problems without a union and finally convincing the worker to sign a card...."
"Typically, if a worker signed a card, it had nothing to do with whether a worker was satisfied with the job or felt they were treated fairly by his or her boss.... [I]f someone told me that she was perfectly contented at work, enjoyed her job and liked her boss, I would look around her house and ask questions based on what I noticed: 'wow, I bet on your salary, you'll never be able to get your house remodeled,' or, 'so does the company pay for day care?' These were questions to which I knew the answer and could use to make her feel that she was cheated by her boss. Five minutes earlier she had just told me that she was feeling good about her work situation.
"We rarely showed workers what an actual union contract looked like because we knew that it wouldn't necessarily reflect what a worker would want to see. We were trained to avoid topics such as dues increases, strike histories, etc. and to constantly move the worker back to what the organizer identified as his or her "issues" during the first part of the house call."
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
And Yes, Card Check Is A Job-Killer... 600,000 Jobs (Or More) To Be Precise!
Senator John Thune had this to say:
"Not only does Card Check strip workers of their fundamental rights and allow government bureaucrats to dictate workplace wages and benefits, it will kill jobs as small businesses struggle to meet union demands. With the country in an economic crisis and working families struggling to pay their bills, Congress owes it to the American people to focus on creating jobs and growing the economy rather than paying back liberal special interests. Trading away the right and protection of a private vote in exchange for coercion is simply not the American way."
Thune goes on to say:
"A study recently released by Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the non-partisan LECG Consulting Group, concluded that the unionization of 1.5 million existing jobs in just the first year after enactment of Card Check (as predicted by union leaders) would lead to an initial loss of 600,000 American jobs."
Gingrich cites the same figure:
"That means that an estimated 600,000 jobs could be lost due to Card Check in the first year alone - and that's on top of the over four million jobs already lost to the flagging economy."
Yet, the Obama Administration - along with extreme liberals in Congress like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - want to fast-track "Card Check."
They'd love to pass it before you are any the wiser.
It's high time that people learn that the well-being of the American people means nothing to those who want power and the advancement of an extreme left-wing agenda. In fact, to them, it would appear that your misery is just sauce for the goose.
Vice President Joe Biden recently told a group of labor leaders:
"You all brought me to the dance a long time ago, and it's time we start dancing."
The stakes are high. We must move quickly!
Use the hyperlink below and send your personalized Blast Fax messages to President Barack Obama and EACH AND EVERY ONE of the Republican Members of the United States Senate and House of Representatives!
Demand that they do whatever it takes to stop this direct assault on our freedoms and the freedoms of our children and grandchildren that is being deceptively titled the Employee Free Choice Act!
Yours In Freedom,
Jeff Mazzella
President
www.cfif.org
P.S. Please help us reach as many concerned Americans as possible by forwarding this e-mail to at least 10 of your friends and family members.
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Even the Wall Street Journal now admits that the blather you are spewing here is not true. The EFCA does not eliminate the secret ballot. The EFCA does not increase the possibility of “physical intimidation.” What part of the bill did you read that said it would legalize assault? By posting this, you are bearing false witness, my friend.
Just tell the truth: you don’t like unions. That’s fine. Most shills for corporations don’t. But just be square with us. Don’t LIE.
David,
Thanks for responding.
EFCA ABOLUTELY eliminates the right of secret ballot in Union Elections, unless you believe that a union will take the path of most resistance and elect not to have the NLRB recognize the union by simply providing signed cards. NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN. The “choice” is up to the union, not the workers.
I will always tell the truth, or at least not lie on purpose.
I HATE unions, I HATE what they represent, and I strongly dislike (I wouldn’t say hate) 90% of the union workers I have ever met.
I’m a self employed third shift courier driver. Hardly a “shill” for corporate greed. Hell, I’ve never made more than 50k a year.
All I know is that each and every night I get frustrated watching lazy postal union workers refuse to help me or do anything outside of their “job description”. It’s like talking to a wall with them.
I see good people leave and get replaced by “workers” whose sole purpose in life is to do the least amount of work possible and still collect a pay check.
In my experience, all Unions do is sap the energy, ingenuity, and work ethic out of a room…all while forcing people to pay “dues” that yield little to nothing in return.
Frankly, I’d say the unions themselves are greedier and more corrupt than any corporation they supposedly try to protect “poor helpless” workers from.
I will never work in an industry that forces me to join a union and give up my individuality and ability to negotiate my own pay based on the value I bring to a company.
I do better work than most people and want that to be praised and rewarded, not have myself threatened for “making everyone else look bad”, as has happened to my friend Jay at US Airways.
I would never deny people the right to collectively bargain their independence away, but a secret ballot must be the mandatory route for doing so…and I would quit any company that unionized on the spot.
And just some food for thought….what three industries have a strong tie to unions? Automobiles, airlines, and education….all three of which are failing horribly.
Unions are obsolete in today’s global environment because as long as there is a Chinese guy willing to do the same work for pennies on the dollar, you can’t blame a corporation for prefering to use them…for the sake of the company’s and stockholder’s well being.
Indeed, I hate to break it to you, but it’s not YOUR job. It’s the companies job. If you aren’t willing to do it for what they are willing to pay or the way they say it needs to be done, then frankly you just need to move on.
Darn. I’ve had a tough day…
Forgive the tone of my rambling. I mean nothing personal against you and do thank you for taking the time to at least write a comment. Cheers for that.
Have a good night.
The 600,000 jobs lost figure is garbage, much like the rest of this post.
Dr Layne_Farrar’s report has been cited in almost all of the anti-EFCA rhetoric describing the bill as a “jobs-killer, which is based on a surprisingly tiny sliver of data from just three Canadian provinces dating back 33 years.
http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/03/rent-a-researcher-business-groups-peddle-dubious-study-claiming-labor-bill-would-cause-job-losses.html
Not only have media sources failed to identify who’s backing the study — they’ve also been slow to look into Layne-Farrar’s claims and methodology, which are based entirely on decades-old data from a handful of Canadian provinces.
Layne-Farrar builds her entire claim that the EFCA and resulting rise in union membership will lead to mass unemployment around one set of data — namely, “a panel dataset of Canadian provinces over the twenty-two year period 1976-1997″ (page 20).
Why Canada? Because, she says, their economy is roughly similar to the U.S. Canada is also unique in that labor laws differ between the country’s 10 provinces — some provinces use EFCA-like “card check” and others that don’t, and one can compare the results.
But buried in page 20, Layne-Farrar herself admits that the data from which her entire argument is constructed isn’t so great after all:
While the Canadian dataset is quite rich, it does have its limitations. For example, out of ten provinces that experienced changes in labor institutions (i.e., card check vs. mandatory voting) between 1976 and 1997, only three had enough variation in the card check rules themselves over time to allow for the reasonable estimation of any direct effects.
So instead of comparing 10 provinces, the study is really based on the experience of just three: Alberta, British Columbia and Newfoundland, from which Layne-Farrar proceeds to extrapolate how many jobs will supposedly be lost in the U.S. if EFCA is to pass.
But does even this small sampling of three Canadian provinces tell us much of anything about card check, unions and unemployment?
Not really, given all the other factors that contribute to losing jobs. For example, in Newfoundland, one of Canada’s poorest provinces, unemployment has always been high — but that has more to do with the boom and bust of the oil and fishing industries in the coastal province than anything to do with card check.
But Layne-Farrar doesn’t take any of these realities into account. And she ignores the most obvious evidence of all: If unions really were the cause of unemployment, why has Canadian unemployment risen in recent years — including 241,000 jobs lost in manufacturing along between 2001 and 2007 — even as union membership has declined?
Even as a piece of business research-for-hire, Layne-Farrar’s study is shockingly weak — based on a thin set of old and irrelevant data that doesn’t even bear out her own conclusions.
If businesses bankrolled Layne-Farrar in hopes that her research and testimony would be a silver bullet that could help stop the Employee Free Choice Act, they didn’t get their money’s worth.
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The blog posting is incorrect to assert that only data from 3 provinces is used. She notes that only three provinces have enough variation to look at the effect of switching the rules on card check. So, her solution is to look at the effect of union density across all 10 provinces on unemployment rates.
In other words, her study does not examine the effect of the rule change directly, it can’t the data isn’t sufficient. Then, we can quibble about a lot of the methods and models, but we can set that aside and ask whether her models are fundamentally sound. Basically, when she asks how union density drives unemployment rates, her models necessarily make the assumption that unemployment rates don’t drive union density (that’s the way the math works). But, that’s clearly a fallacy. She tries some adjustments to get around this, but none are convincing. For example, she lags the union density so that she is asking whether union density from a year ago is related to unemployment today. I see what she’s trying to do, but it’s just not good enough–especially for a paper that draws such sweeping conclusions.
According to the study, An Empirical Assessment of the Employee Free Choice Act: The Economic Implications, every 3 percentage points gained in union membership through card checks and mandatory arbitration will result in a 1 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate the following year. If Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar’s theory was correct, then the huge drops in Unionized jobs seen over the last 30 years, should have resulted in full employment.