Thursday, October 23, 2008
If you need only one reason to vote against Barack Obama...
As I have written before, if you need only one reason to vote against Barack Obama it should be the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act. Peter Kirsanow makes the point here, and I will write something much longer when I get a moment. Suffice it to say that it will radically alter the relationship between employers and workers, and not in a good way. Unions will be able to organize your workplace without an election, and will be able to force binding arbitration of collective bargaining agreements simply by sticking to an unreasonable position for four months. Obama has made its enactment a priority, and with Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress it is hard to see what stops this bad bill from becoming law. Yes, it will be a great boon for the labor unions that provide the foot soldiers in Democratic elections, but it will create an enormous incentive move jobs outside the United States.
20 Comments:
By 
, at
Thu Oct 23, 11:35:00 AM:
Why is "binding arbitration of collective bargaining agreements" a bad thing? Arbitration might decide in favor of the employers as well as the union. And what does it mean when you say "organize your workplace without an election?" Surely not all workers will be forced to join the union, in which case, what's the problem?
By 
smitty1e, at
Thu Oct 23, 11:57:00 AM:
@Anonymous
In a word: Michigan.
More elaborately, while unions have a history of being a solution to acute problems, they become a solution in search of a problem in the chronic case.
If high federally imposed taxes don't scare business to favorable foreign ground, beggaring us, then self-imposed taxes in the form of union dues will succeed in beggaring us.
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Oct 23, 12:24:00 PM:
Surely not all workers will be forced to join the union, in which case, what's the problem?
Actually, they will be. Under the Employee "Free Choice" Act, if a union obtains the signatures of a majority of the employees in a shop -- half the people plus one -- which it can do with no knowledge of the employer and no discussion of the consequences, then the employer must recognize the union and all employees will have to become members (unless, perhaps, you live in a "right to work" state -- I am unclear on the EFCA's preemption provisions). No election, no debate, no choice.
Worse, it is asymmetrical. "Card check" can put the union in, but it cannot knock the union out. It only need to obtain a simple majority of employees once, at any point in time.
Now, what is wrong with "binding arbitration"? Perhaps nothing, ultimately. The problem is the speed. Most collective bargaining agreements take a long time to negotiate - I believe the average is 18 months. That is understandable, insofar as the stakes for both sides are large. Mandatory binding arbitration in four months will effectively put decisions about wages, benefits, work rules, grievance procedures, and so forth in the hands of arbitrators who will, in effect, become the defacto policymakers for the American workplace. Such people, who will be paid only if unions drive new business in their direciton, will have an enormous incentive to become union-friendly.
Trust me, it will be a mess.
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 12:52:00 PM:
If >50% of the workers want a union, why should they not get one?
I find it hard to believe that seeking the signatures of >50% of employees could be kept a secret from management. Management could certainly get the word out about why unions are bad and not in workers' self-interest, if that is a compelling case.
Under the proposed act, as I understand it, employers could challenge a union's status by alleging coercion of signatures, in which case there would be a vote.
As pitched by Obama, anyway, the act is meant to reinstate worker protections that have recently been rolled back by the Bush Administration. If the legislation is really a new "high water mark" I'm sure it will be amply contested to Congress -- who will be worried about legislation that can lead to job losses in their districts.
Honestly, right now I can see the appeal of employee-protective legislation -- warts & all.
Obviously someone is going to have to come up with some creative solutions to how to provide some security to the work force without the costs becoming so onerous that it's not economical to hire American workers.
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 01:58:00 PM:
And what does it mean when you say "organize your workplace without an election?"
It means that a union can be installed without an election by the workers. What did you think it meant?
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Oct 23, 01:59:00 PM:
"Obviously someone is going to have to come up with some creative solutions to how to provide some security to the work force without the costs becoming so onerous that it's not economical to hire American workers."
Don't penalize success.
People go into business to make money. Take away that money, and there is no further incentive.
Companies that do not grow don't hire new workers.
If people feel that starting new businesses will not be worth the extraordinary time and effort required, new jobs won't be created that way, either.
Democrats want to tax the upper class more and more. Well guess which class signs paychecks, and controls company policies?
"If >50% of the workers want a union, why should they not get one?"
You skipped some information there. From Tigerhawk's comment above, if 51% of the workers want to form a union, that will *force* the other 49% into the union.
Do you really want to bring back the medieval guild system? Because that's what this sounds like.
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 02:04:00 PM:
The forced enslavement of previously free people, by forcing them to join a "union", is obviously not enough of a reason for some posters to vote against Obama. Hmmm, what would persuade, I wonder....
How about dramatically raising the taxes of the most productive and hard-working people in the economy, just as we have Great Depression 2.0 threatening? Or, raising trade barriers, a la Smoot-Hawley? Most of you posting in favor of Obama may not be the targets of these first tax increases, but you may be the victims of the massive job losses that will be the direct result of those increases.
Still not enough? Would the threatened classification of "carbon" as a pollutant move you at all? Like the stuff you exhale when you breathe, that your engines leave behind when you drive or mow your lawn, your power plants produce when making the electricity that makes your modern life palatable etc etc.
How about a threatened replay of the disaster that the Vienna summit became, where a near-miss nuclear war with Russia was one very likely outcome. That's what Obama cited as a "good" example of his intended foreign policy changes. by the way.
Does gutting Defense spending in the middle of a war move you to vote McCain? How about ending missile defense deployment in Europe? If you are Polish that last one might particularly scare the beejeesus out of you.
Does Obama's membership in the Marxist New Party worry you at all? Does Ayers explicit support for opening "reeducation camps" in the U.S., where one FBI informant said the the Dohrn/Ayers cabal expected as many as 25 million Americans would require execution.
Is any of this penetrating?
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 02:07:00 PM:
Anonymous:
Your last paragraph hits the nail on the head. The EFCA swings way too far in one direction. The "card check" aspect is troublesome because, believe it or not, many people don't know what they're signing, sign because they want to get the person asking off their backs, are misled into signing, paid to sign, intimidated into signing, etc., which is why the current law (have 30% of the workers sign authorization cards for a union election monitored by the NLRB) still makes sense. (Remember, the closed shop states haven't fared as well in job creation as the right-to-work states, and all politicians should take note of that when seeking to help repair the economy).
The draft law has no details to it, which is troublesome in and of its own right. In addition, the binding arbitration doesn't make sense as written, for many reasons. First, people with no interest in a business will get to determine wages, benefits, etc. (this doesn't happen in Western Europe, by the way). That's a huge step and very dangerous. Should a panel of 3 semi-retired "slip and fall" lawyers who fill their weeks arbitrating American Arbitration Association cases really get to determine wages, benefits and workplace rules at a Ford plant? At an Intel plant? And that makes sense because. . .? We're in the throes of a major recession, so it's hard to see how the passage of this law will create more jobs let alone preserve the ones that are out there. Second, it's troubling that the unions are putting $250 million into this election. Does that mean that if you do that, you'll automatically get a one-sided legislative quid pro quo?
It's hard to say whether there are enough Democrats to bring some more rationality back into this process should Obama win (McCain would veto the bill). If not, the bill could well create many more problems than it's designed to solve.
The Centrist
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 02:23:00 PM:
This ">50% card check = enslavement of 49.9999%" sounds like a seriously red herring.
If you get the 30% signatures and then have an election -- doesn't a >50% vote then create a union shop, too? Like, the same >50% who could have signed their cards and then had a union? (If the union was a really bad thing, couldn't management just negotiate with the union to dissolve itself?)
So basically the difference is that management gets a greater chance to intimidate workers out of supporting a union in a so-called "open" election.
So, I guess the question is: Who should workers be more afraid of being intimidated by, fellow workers or management?
Look, I totally get that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But, why not work on mitigating the feared "unintended consequences" instead of rushing to this sort of hyperbole.
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 02:36:00 PM:
Unbelievable. If there is a fire in the first floor of an occupied house, would you rather stand around arguing about whether the fire should be described as big or small, or instead save the residents? Vote McCain.
And, "enslavement" is hardly hyperbole in this instance. Only someone whose frame of reference is industrial workplace conditions of the nineteenth or early twentieth centuries would think of unions as workers protection organizations. Only someone whose idea of "free political expression" is that all workers paychecks are nothing more than the source of forced political donations for the Democrat party would think of Union membership as a "free choice". This bill is a naked attempt to preempt state "Open Shop" laws, to end employers rights to fight unionization, to increase political spending by unions and end freedom of choice in the workplace. "Enslavement" seems about right.
By Elise, at
Thu Oct 23, 02:38:00 PM:
So basically the difference is that management gets a greater chance to intimidate workers out of supporting a union in a so-called "open" election.
I don't follow this logic. Surely a secret ballot vote on whether to form a union provides less opportunity for intimidation by either side than the proposed card check system.
I'm pretty confused about why this legislation is needed. If current law provides that 30% of employees can request a vote on whether to unionize by doing the card check thing and then a secret ballot is held on the unionization itself, that seems to actually be an easier road to forming a union than the proposed 50% card check law. Why do you need to add a 50% card check road to unionization unless your goal is specifically to eliminate the secrecy of the ballot?
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 02:47:00 PM:
Hasn't someone been saying a lot lately "Elections have consequences".
This looks like of of those consequences.
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 06:25:00 PM:
Perhaps it depends on who is collecting the membership cards?
ACORN anyone?
When I was younger, I worked in a department store where some of the workers were trying to organize a union. They could be pretty coercive, especially to a young (20 years old) guy who just wanted to keep his job and get along with the people he worked with everyday. People may sign a card, then vote "NO" on a secret ballot.
Later, I worked at a factory where part of the workforce was unionized and part non-union. During a rather stupidly called strike (and after) there was a lot of animus under the surface for a period of time.
Consider that one of the most successful and productive auto manufacturing companies in America is....Honda; non-unionized. If you have never worked in a UAW factory, you have no idea how the union can tie productivity in knots. Look what they've done to Detroit and Michigan. Good luck with all that.
-David
By TigerHawk, at
Thu Oct 23, 06:34:00 PM:
Why do you need to add a 50% card check road to unionization unless your goal is specifically to eliminate the secrecy of the ballot?
Eliminating the secrecy of the ballot is clearly one of the objectives. Another is to deprive employers of the chance to make their argument against unionization.
By , at
Thu Oct 23, 07:49:00 PM:
It would be much more honest to just straight-up oppose unions as a drag on the so-called "free market" than to hang an argument on the loss of a secret ballot . . . a "threat to democracy" vs. a "threat to capitalism."
Under the new rules, as I understand them, 30% could still request a secret ballot election.
Is that incorrect?
By , at
Fri Oct 24, 01:39:00 PM:
"Under the new rules, as I understand them, 30% could still request a secret ballot election."
The issue is that all this must be done openly and in public; if the prospective union boss is standing in front of a worker and pressing him or her to agree, it would behoove that worker to agree. Don't want to offend the new boss, after all.
On the other hand, if secret ballots are preserved the issue is moot.
Why would you want to see workers intimidated? Given that their freedom is at risk, wouldn't you want people to be able to vote any way they choose, without intimidation?
By , at
Sat Oct 25, 04:43:00 PM:
Fair enough -- how about this --
on the "card" being "checked" just ASK the workers whether they want 50% of checked cards to carry the day OR whether they want a secret ballot election.
By , at
Sat Oct 25, 07:14:00 PM:
What is the big problem with a secret ballot?
By , at
Sat Oct 25, 09:13:00 PM:
The argument made against the two-step process (cards followed by secret ballot) is that employers create a climate of fear among employees in advance of the secret ballot vote -- and create delay in the process.
According to union materials, a significant number of employers threaten to fire union supporters and, in fact, a large percentage do engage in "retaliatory" firing.
I have no idea if this is true, I'm repeating what I've read in EFCA materials.
I think the "idea" of the single step -- i.e., 50% card check vs. 30% card check followed by a secret ballot is that you still get the "majority" vote, but eliminate a more drawn-out two step process that gives management a chance to talk >50% of voter out of voting in favor of the union, by whatever means they do so.
By , at
Sun Oct 26, 02:37:00 PM:
I don't follow your first point at all. How can a secret ballot enable employers to create a "climate of fear"? That seems to turn logic on it's head: if voters are forced to vote openly, in an environment where everyone will know how they voted, fear of retaliation is easy to understand. Secret votes are the best and only way to protect voters from that retaliation, and from the "climate of fear" you mention.
"According to union materials, a significant number of employers threaten to fire union supporters and, in fact, a large percentage do engage in "retaliatory" firing." These acts are crimes, and any company that engages in actions like you hypothesize here will be hauled before the NLRB posthaste.
The idea is to promote safety, security, and truly guage employees opinions. Secret votes promote these values. Open votes enable union thugs to force workers into unions, and allow unions to expand their theft of wages to promote union political causes.
