Big Labor is making a billion-dollar bet on this fall’s election. And if it elects Barack Obama and a filibuster-proof Senate, it could run the table next year.
Sen. Obama is an enthusiastic supporter of Big Labor’s legislative agenda of more compulsory unionism. At the top of that agenda is the Orwellian-named “Employee Free Choice Act,” which would block employees from secret-ballot elections over unionization. Passage of EFCA, more accurately called the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill, is central to Big Labor’s plans to obtain new coercive union organizing privileges.
The bill’s provisions attack freedom and choice for both employees and employers. In Big Labor’s worldview, the only proper relationship between workers and employers is an adversarial one.
Under mandatory “card check,” employees may never even hear their employer’s opinion on the downsides of unionization and what it could mean for their company. Employees could leave work at the end of one day, only to find the next morning that they are in a union.
And just how will this happen? Union organizers pressure workers one by one to sign union authorization cards. When a majority of workers sign, the employer would be required by law to bargain with the union as the “exclusive representative” of all workers.
Because “exclusive representation” is such an extraordinary privilege, current law allows employers to insist that workers make their decision on unionization through a secret-ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. The Card Check Forced Unionism Bill does away with the secret ballot except under the most far-fetched of circumstances.
But there’s more. In the Senate, Obama introduced the so-called Patriot Employer Act, which offers tax advantages to those companies agreeing to so-called “neutrality” and use of card check (which is not yet mandated).
Under such agreements, employees lose both access to truthful information about the downsides of unionization and the privacy of the secret ballot. Employers that refuse to throw their workers under the bus will not be deemed “patriots” and will therefore face higher taxes than their competitors.
Meanwhile, Obama and union lobbyists have another bill in mind — one that will force unionization on hundreds of thousands of public safety workers across America.
Under current law and the principle of federalism, states are free to determine for themselves the best way for state and local governments to negotiate contracts with government employees. Almost half of all states either do not permit union monopoly bargaining over police, firefighters and EMTs or grant more limited forms of “exclusive representation.” And in the last 12 years, 16 state legislatures have rejected legislation that would force police, firefighters and paramedics into union collectives.
Already a co-sponsor of this bill, Obama promises he will push for and sign the Police and Fire Monopoly Bargaining Act, an unfunded mandate that would force states and cities to bargain with union bosses as the monopoly bargaining agent of public safety personnel. And the federal government would take over the labor relations of states that refuse to comply.
If this bill becomes law, our nation’s bravest and finest could lose the right to bargain for themselves and many would also be forced to pay dues or fees to unions as a condition of employment. At the same time, the International Association of Firefighters union hierarchy would be further empowered to pursue its long-running vendetta against volunteer firefighting departments.
And finally, because the Bush White House has so badly mishandled NLRB appointments, President Obama would be able to quickly pack the nearly vacant board with union partisans who, like Bill Clinton’s activist board, would interpret federal labor law to expand further union coercive privileges.
With the potential for the most radical shift in labor law in decades, it should come as no surprise that Big Labor is spending record funds — estimated at over $1 billion in mostly compulsory dues — on the 2008 elections.
When it comes fighting for forced unionism power grabs that corral more hardworking Americans into unions, Obama is Big Labor’s great hope. So much for the little guy.
Doug Stafford is vice president of the National Right to Work Committee, a 2.2 million-member grassroots citizens’ organization that is dedicated to the principle that no one should be forced to pay tribute to a union in order to get or keep a job.
