The Shop Floor is reporting once again on the lies that the SEIU is using to try and cajole people into thinking that the Wall Street Journal supports the Employee Free Choice Act, today. But now that story has taken a twist. It appears that the House Education and Labor Committee is using the same lie.

Originally the SEIU surgically removed a few words from the WSJ article to make it seem as if the Journal was somehow supporting the EFCA. On what the WSJ said, the SEIU wrote the following:

“The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act,” wrote the WSJ.

Only that isn’t really what the WSJ said at all. Here is the full sentence the Journal wrote in its headlined “Unionize or die” (my bold for emphasis):

“The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act but in practice makes it a dead letter.”

So, in essence the WSJ was saying that the EFCA eliminates the secret ballot in everything but words.

Well, not content to let the SEIU have all the fun, Chairman George Miller (D, CA) of the House Education and Labor Committee used the same misleading, incomplete WSJ quote in a Committee E-Newsletter quiz. It is also posted online.

So, now government officials are using the same mangled Wall Street Journal quote to lie their way into pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people.

Wonderful. What won’t these people do to get their way?

The National Association of Manufacturers, a pro-business organization, has launched a few different anti-Card Check efforts. [click on the poster to see it embiggened]

One of the points the NAM is making is that the card check discussion is a distraction and will force focus from the economic worries.

At a time when our economy is struggling to create and retain jobs, I am concerned that Congress would introduce the anti-democratic Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). If passed, EFCA would destroy jobs and place an even heavier burden on large and small companies. A recent economic analysis by economist Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar of LECG Consulting, a non-partisan firm, shows that every 3 percentage points gained in union membership through card checks and mandatory arbitration would lead to a 1 percent increase in unemployment the following year. Based on the assumption that EFCA would add 1.5 million more union members, this legislation would cost our economy 600,000 jobs in 2010.

EFCA is a dramatic departure from long established labor law. It deprives employees of the privacy of the secret ballot, which has always been an integral part of the democratic process. It would also change the traditional role of federal arbitrators from interpreting contracts to dictating the terms and conditions of contracts.

This is a divisive issue at a critical time when the country needs to come together for economic recovery and job creation. EFCA will impose a massive burden on the economy. I hope Congress will put American working men and women first when they consider this legislation. Americans have much at stake. I urge Congress to do what is right for the nation and oppose EFCA.

Another bad feature, though one lesser pointed out, is the forced unionism by federal fiat.

In any case, the EFCA is horrible, horrible legislation that really only serves one purpose and that is as a giveaway to union bosses by Democrats. This act does not help employees, employers OR the economy.

Card Check Bill Threatens Workers’ Rights

-By Webb Brown

Congress is preparing to debate a bill that is not only anti-business, but also anti-worker. It’s ironically named the “Employee Free Choice Act,” (EFCA), and the only winners, if this bill is passed, are big labor unions.

Since unions in private industries have seen their numbers dwindle over the past 20 years, they are pushing for changes that totally change the rules when it comes to organizing a union. They do this by taking away secret ballot elections in union campaigns and replacing it with a system called “card check.”

Under this system, union organizers would be able to approach workers and ask them to sign a card saying they want a union. This form of organizing leaves employees vulnerable to labor union strong-arm tactics and peer pressure. No longer will a worker have the privacy of the ballot box to make that important decision.

The act has a few other dangerous provisions. Employers would be forced to reach a deal on collective bargaining agreements within 90 days of a successful union election. If no agreement is made, government arbitrators will come and make the decisions.

Read the rest at Flathead Beacon.

The Heritage Foundation takes on the lunacy that is the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and it’s un-American card check feature.

The Employee Free Choice Act of 2009 (EFCA), also known as the “card check” bill, has been reintro­duced in Congress. The EFCA would fundamentally change the nature of the relationship between unions, employers, and employees. Professor Richard Epstein of the University of Chicago School of Law calls the EFCA “the most transformative piece of labor legisla­tion to come before Congress since the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (NLRA).”

The EFCA would destroy the underpinnings of the National Labor Relations Act, which established a structured system in which unions and employers— not the government—would negotiate the terms and conditions of their collective bargaining agreements. Section 3 of the EFCA mandates that if the parties cannot agree to a contract within 130 days after a union is first recognized, an arbitration panel estab­lished by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Ser­vice will be able to impose the terms and conditions of a collective bargaining agreement that is “binding upon the parties for a period of 2 years.” As the Supreme Court has said:

[The object of the NLRA] was not to allow governmental regulation of the terms and conditions of employment, but rather to ensure that employers and their employees could work together to establish mutually satisfactory conditions…. [I]t was recognized from the beginning that agreement might in some case be impossible, and it was never intended that the Government would…become a party to the negotiations and impose its own views of a desirable settlement.

But it is the EFCA’s effective elimination of the secret ballot in union elections that is its most shocking provision, since it creates ideal condi­tions for individuals to be subjected to intimida­tion, threats, and coercion. The secret ballot was implemented to prevent these ills not only in union elections, but in all elections. The secret-ballot election was one of the “central pillars of the original NLRA” that was intended “to introduce a system of union democracy whereby unions could only obtain the rights of exclusive representation for firms if they could prevail in an election held by secret ballot.”

Go on over to the Heritage Foundation and Read the rest of this fine, informative piece.

A good one on IBD By Michael Barone…

The Obama administration’s budget is full of proposals that threaten to weaken our staggering economy:

• Higher taxes on high earners and reduced deductions for their charitable contributions and mortgage interests.
• A cap-and-trade system that will impose higher costs on everyone who uses electricity.
• A national health insurance program that will take $600 billion or so out of the private-sector economy.

But the most grievous threat to future prosperity may be off-budget — the inaptly named Employee Free Choice Act.

Also known as card check, the legislation would effectively abolish secret ballots in unionization elections. It provides that once a majority of employees had filled out sign-up cards circulated by union organizers, the employer would have to recognize and bargain with the union.

And if the two sides didn’t reach agreement in a short term, federal arbitrators would impose one. Wages, fringe benefits and work rules would all be imposed by the federal government.

See the rest at ibd.com.