National Clothesline

The House of Representatives has passed a bill, which it calls the Employee Free Choice Act, that would remove both employer and employee free choice from the federal law regulating unionization issues. That law, known as the National Labor Relations Act, has functioned quite well over the last 71 years.

Employers and employees should be

terrified by the possibility of the Employee Free Choice Act being passed by the Senate and being signed into law.

As background, under the current federal statute, a company can be unionized if a majority of its employees vote in a secret ballot election in favor of union representation.

A union earns the right to have an election by getting 30 percent of the employees in that potential bargaining unit to express an interest in unionization, usually in the form of union authorization cards.

If the union wins the election, it is certified by the National Labor Relations Board, and the employer must bargain in good faith to reach a contract. The employer, however, cannot be forced legally to agree to any contract terms, though the employees can go out on strike.

If the company bargains in bad faith, it could ultimately be found in contempt and seriously fined, but it cannot be forced to sign a contract it has not previously agreed to adopt.

Further, under the National Labor Relations Act, if the employer discriminates against employees because of their union activities, they can be forced to cease the discrimination, reinstate employees who were fired, and give back pay.

In the past 30 years, unions have stopped filing petitions for NLRB elections because they have been losing elections, or they have been unable to get enough employees interested in signing authorization cards. Employees are far more likely to sign a card to get a union organizer off his or her back than vote for a union in the privacy of a ballot booth.

The so-called Employee Free Choice Act would require the National Labor Relations Board to certify unions based entirely on union authorization cards. No election, no chance for the employer to give its employees facts about unionization, and no free choice. The leaders of the House of Representatives have concluded that because the American workforce has become less unionized, there must be something wrong with the current law.

Of course, big labor has always been a large contributor to the party favoring this legislation. This law is payback for those contributions; not one of those legislators can truly believe that this is a “free choice” issue. Isn’t this bill about taking away an employee’s vote? You can package manure any way you want to, but it’s still manure.

The bill also requires binding arbitration if the union and the company cannot reach a contract in 120 days. That means that the employer will be forced to agree to whatever contract terms an arbitrator decides are appropriate. Unions will have every incentive to go to arbitration, rather than work out the terms of a reasonable collective bargaining agreement. This bill is so anti-business that it is conscience shocking.

Unions themselves are employers of hundreds of staff, and it is very rare to see their employees represented by a union. Why is that the case?

Does Congress have to bargain with its employees over wages, hours, and working conditions? No, it does not. But Congress wants to make it easier for unions to get into private companies and to force businesses into contracts not negotiated by people with a stake in the business, but imposed by arbitrators.

If the Employee Free Choice Act passes, democracy and free enterprise will take a serious blow. Of course, that did not prevent the New York Times from endorsing the law. I read the editorial yesterday with amazement at the brazen stupidity or hypocrisy of the writer. The bill should be called the Union Resuscitation Act.

Finally, if the Act passes, I will be writing many more articles on how to cope with the new Union Resuscitation Act. Imagine the nightmare of having three of your five employees sign union authorization cards in a bar, then having to present evidence to an arbitrator four months later of what you make, what your utilities cost, and so on, in the hope that he or she will impose a contract that does not put you out of business.

Terrifying? You bet.