When comparing Barack Obama and John McCain on union issues, it helps to consider that employees are defined by three distinct interests. The first interest group is the union bosses and their most active acolytes. The second group is the rank-and-file union membership. The third group is that of non-unionized workers – who now make up more than 90 percent of the private sector workforce. The legislative voting records and campaign promises of the presidential candidates show that Obama regularly supports the interests of the first group, the bosses, while McCain regularly supports the third group, the non-unionized workers. In a real sense, the critical question is who has the best interests of the middle group, the union rank-and-file, at heart.
No other union issue so dominates labor debates today as the terribly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” (EFCA). Also known as the Card Check proposal, EFCA is the highest priority for Obama and his Democratic congressional allies. The most well-known provision of EFCA is its most dangerous: Eliminating secret ballots in union organizing elections. This would allow union bosses to intimidate workers into favoring unions since everybody would know how everybody else voted on the issue. McCain wisely opposes EFCA’s perversion of democracy, as does 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern. Would already-unionized workers benefit or suffer, from the forced participation of workers? As unrest is more likely within an unhappy membership than a satisfied one, it stands to reason that even the broad ranks of an unfairly formed union would be worse off, not better, from passage of Obama’s EFCA.
There are other aspects of EFCA that are almost as objectionable. Consider the provision that would require binding arbitration – with the arbitrator unilaterally writing the contract – if a union and business fail to reach an agreement within 120 days after the union requests bargaining. This is madness because such agreements rarely are reached in that period of time. As Peter Kirsanow wrote at National Review Online, “What if an arbitrator mandates a wage scale that makes the employer uncompetitive? What if the arbitrator puts the company into a pension plan that renders the company unmarketable? … The questions are interminable.” All workers – even the union bosses – would suffer if an arbitrator’s binding decision put the company out of business. No business equals no jobs. Yet Obama supports EFCA’s mandatory arbitration madness. McCain is the workingman’s true friend.
