Card Check could kill my company and yours

Our company has been operating for more than 60 years — six decades — to build the American dream. We have been named America’s top concrete construction firm in four of the last five years.

So take it seriously when I warn:  The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) could kill our company, or many like it.

EFCA, known by many as the “Card Check” bill is an absolute abomination. Its card check provision would allow union organizers to harass thousands of our company’s employees.

Its “binding interest arbitration” provision would substitute the judgment of a government-imposed bureaucrat for decades of practical know-how developed during the building of a successful company within the free enterprise system. That’s why the fight against EFCA is personal for me, my family, and thousands of our employees.

The fallout from EFCA could be severe. From a business perspective, it would make the already-difficult economy even tougher because the labor market would be much less flexible. And the notion of having the government dictate terms of private contracts is outrageous.

From an employee’s perspective, meanwhile, there is worry that the large economic effect of EFCA will be massive job loss (reducing as many as 600,000 jobs in just the first year of passage, according to one recent economic-impact study).

Because we provide fantastic benefits and a great workplace, I’m not concerned that our employees are interested in signing up to pay union dues to keep their jobs. But EFCA’s mere passage would raise costs all around, while driving jobs away, creating a toxic recipe for an already faltering economy. That, in turn, could kill a lot of companies.

That this issue is alive at all is a testament to the fact that workplace issues are complex and arcane. Most people have no daily experience with union organizing laws — and it’s an area that’s still misunderstood by those who do deal with the subject.

Many people wrongly believe unions do not have fair access to “pitch” employees on their service. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Organized labor has relied on these misperceptions because it desperately needs to pass EFCA (or some form of it) to usher in millions of new members and their dues dollars.

Of course, if a private business like ours asked the government to pass a law virtually forcing people to pay for our services, there would be unstoppable and justifiable outrage (much as we have seen from citizens and editorial boards who are aware of EFCA).

In part, organized labor needs to continue to fund its political operations. It has already seen some return on its political investment as President Obama has signed executive orders effectively barring non-union construction companies like ours from many major public projects and setting the stage for removing notices to employees about their right to know how unions spend their money.

A lesser known concern, though, is that many union-run pension funds have run out of sufficient membership to keep the funds solvent and, consequently, unions are seeking ways to get more people “in the door” to stay afloat.

They are panicking, and ‘Hail Mary’ throws like EFCA may be their only hope of keeping the pensions — a main selling point to prospective members — alive.

Whatever the reason EFCA is pushed by these special interests, it is not in the interest of working Americans or the free enterprise system. We, and our elected leaders, must continue our promising fight against EFCA and any “compromise” that harms employee rights and the health of our economy.

Brett McMahon is vice president of Miller & Long Co., Inc., one of 25,000 member companies of Associated Builders and Contractors.