Mark Tapscott: Business leaders swarm hill to fight card check
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
March 3, 2010
Executives and owners representing thousands of small and medium-size businesses from eight states flooded Capitol Hill yesterday with one message for their senators -- don't even think about trying to revive the supposedly dead Employee Free Choice Act.
An estimated 250 of the lobbyists-for-a-day represented state-level chambers of commerce from Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Their work was organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has been a vocal opponent of the proposal, which is also known as card check.
Card check would abolish the secret ballot in workplace representation elections. The proposal is Big Labor's top legislative priority, and it is supported by President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Other provisions within card check would give federally appointed arbitrators the power to impose agreements that are heavily weighted to satisfy union demands through binding arbitration, and to impose one-sided penalties on employers.
Despite wide support among congressional Democrats, card check's backers have not been able to get it to a vote in the current Congress. A version of card check was approved by the House in 2007 but failed in the Senate.
Rumors have swirled on Capitol Hill for months of attempts to create a compromise version able to gain enough votes, or to sneak the bill into law as an amendment to another must-pass bill.
Thomas J. Flanagan, division president of Citywide Banks in Colorado, and Kevin Reddy, chief executive officer of the Noodles and Company, also in Colorado, visited Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall, and received similar responses.
"Bennet asked us why we were here for a bill that won't even be coming to the floor for a vote," Flanagan said. "But Vice President Joe Biden just said two days ago that card check is not dead, so we want to make sure they hear from us on it."
Udall asked the same question, according to Reddy, who said both senators "were very empathetic, they showed understanding of the issue from our perspective, but that doesn't always align with their votes."
"Just running companies and building brands these days is tough enough, and with the unpredictability that card check would bring, it would only make it more difficult and more expensive," Reddy said.
Flanagan noted that Colorado has a Democratic governor and Democratic majorities in the state legislature, which approved abolishing tax exemptions favored by business, even though "we had more people testifying than I've ever seen."
He said business leaders worry that Democrats at the national level might do something similar with card check, passing it despite the strong opposition of the business community. "We just want to make sure it's dead," he said.
"Main Street job creators want the card check job-killer off the table once and for all," said Steven J. Law, chief legal officer and general counsel for the U.S. Chamber. "They are flocking to Washington to say no to an anti-employment agenda in Congress and at the National Labor Relations Board."
Mark Tapscott is editorial page editor of The Washington Examiner and proprietor of Tapscott's Copy Desk blog on washingtonexaminer.com.
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