Union Leaders Resorting to Undemocratic Tactics
Posted on January 18, 2007 at 5:08 pm by Chuck Muth
by Richard Berman
Arizona Daily Star
January 12, 2007
Faced with an American workforce unimpressed by what they’re selling, union leaders are growing desperate to prop up their membership rolls. Their latest gambit? Make it easier to intimidate employees into joining unions, opening the floodgates of mandatory dues money.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney and Arizona AFL-CIO President Rebekah Friend try to package their proposal in the language of fairness (”Working families ready for substantial change,” Jan. 9), but employees and lawmakers alike should check the fine print on the back of the union label before buying it.
Under current law, a union is typically recognized when a majority of employees vote to organize in a secret-ballot election monitored by the National Labor Relations Board - you know, pretty much the same way we elect our representatives in a democracy.
Faced with declining membership, however, union officials have turned to a highly questionable practice of organizing new members through a process called “card check.” With card check, paid union organizers try to persuade employees to sign cards saying that they favor union representation. This persuasion frequently features deception, coercion and harassing visits to employees’ homes.
In case after case, employees report not fully understanding the legal ramifications of signing the cards. Union leaders argue that the current system leaves pro-union employees open to intimidation from their employers. But this is so counterintuitive it is practically a rhetorical slap in the face. Think about it: Secret-ballot elections are designed to protect employees from retribution from both union organizers and employers.
No one would argue that private voting in national elections exposes voters to bullying from Democrats but not Republicans (or vice versa). The fact is that employees are more susceptible to pressure from employers under the card-check method because employers can see exactly who “voted” for unionization.
Union leaders are so hungry for new members that they are even pushing a bill through Congress, ironically named the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which would make card check the rule and not the exception.
After all, the card-check method has proven more effective in netting new members - which means union leaders stand to reap ever more revenue from the mandatory member dues that add up to billions of dollars annually.
Now a number of politicians are actively promoting the bill, apparently ignorant of the irony inherent in officials recently elected by secret ballot attempting to do away with secret-ballot elections.
Union organizations like Change to Win and the AFL-CIO have effectively leveraged their political ties to convince lawmakers that they can speak for the nation’s workforce, posing as their ambassadors to Washington. As a result, many lawmakers frequently mistake the agenda of well-heeled union lobbyists for the interests of employees.
Political support for the Employee Free Choice Act is especially odd in light of the fact that polling has shown that 75 percent of Americans think that secret-ballot elections are the most democratic method of choosing a union. How odd it is, then, that union leaders still agree in part, since they favor maintaining secret-ballot elections when it comes to decertification (choosing to dissolve the union). After all, they argue, someone might pressure an employee to sign a card “voting” to dump the union.
Buyer, beware: There’s no return policy. Union leaders are more than happy to let new members card-check in, but there’s no card-checking out.
