Employee Free Choice - SEIU Discriminates Against Its Own Employee for Union Activity?

Unions claim that the Employee Free Choice Act needs to be passed because discrimination and intimidation by employers make it impossible for employees to fairly select their representatives. I'm sure Mary McCoy would agree that employers can discriminate and intimidate workers - the problem is that her employer is the SEIU International! Take a look at her charge attached. Unions claim that the card-check process is the only fair way to discern employee attitudes about unions. But when you look at how unions treat their own employees (much less their own members) it is hard to take seriously the claim that meetings away from work by these thugs is a great way to protect the right to choose your representative.

Employee Free Choice Act: 535 - A Number to be Reckoned With

"535" - Why is this number so important to you?

They’re not the winning numbers in a ‘Cash 3’ lotto drawing. Well, at least not mine!
But, I guess in a way . . . they still have something to do with gambling, if you’ll allow a little license here.

“535” is the total number of Congress-people we elect to represent us in Washington D.C. A very small number to reflect the wishes, ideas, goals and viewpoints of nearly 300 million of us, wouldn’t you agree?

A perfect system then . . . this Democracy of ours when so few are supposed to know what so many of us are concerned about, and want they to do on our behalf? No, in reality, it isn’t a perfect system. But, it sure beats the heck out of anything else out there. And besides . . if it were any more, we might never get them all to show up and vote. Heck, ever try to get four family members to agree on where you’re going to grab a bite to eat for dinner?”

So again – the question: why should this number be of such significance to me?
Very simply this. On a day-to-day basis, they have the power to suggest, support and vote for (or against) legislation that has vast and far-reaching impact . . . from Barrow, AK to Key West and from Northern Maine to San Diego. And yes – everywhere else in between.

So it goes with the Employee Free Choice Act, or ‘E.F.C.A.’  This is a law relating to business and industry of all shapes and sizes in our country, the likes of which we haven’t seen in over 50 years! A law which passed the House of Representatives last year and very nearly passed in the Senate. A law which, if a Democrat is elected as our next President in November, will almost assuredly become law before the Ides of March, 2009!

Now I don’t plan to wax politically or philosophically here. Far wiser and learned people than I have done that on this subject and will definitely continue to do so in the months ahead. And I’m not concerned whether your personal viewpoint is pro-union or you’re more oriented towards being union-free.

The point is this: one of “the” main guiding principles our founding fathers agreed upon when our country was established, was the basic right to vote. Yes, a right we sometimes take far too lightly and profess to be too busy to exercise.  Nonetheless, it is STILL one of the main reasons our country is different from so many others on the globe.

And, while we are ‘too busy’ to notice or read beyond the headlines or the clever naming and packaging of this legislation . . . one of the main objectives in it is their right to vote, to take away your right to a vote on the subject as to whether or not you choose to join a union.

That’s right. ‘535’ people can decide for you . . . your neighbor . . . your co-worker - everyone out there, whether or not you even the chance to vote on this subject, should an organizing drive begin at your job.

How could this come about? How would that happen, you ask?

One of the 3 main tenets of this proposal is that if 50% - plus ‘1’ – signed an authorization card . . . the union would gain the right to bypass the normal election process, and call for “demand recognition” or “card-check recognition” with your employer.  They would have the right to meet with your company, present their proof of interest on your part, and suggest dates that both sides could meet to begin contract negotiation.

Oh, and . . . if both sides couldn’t reach complete agreement on all items within this first contract within 90 days – an arbitrator would be appointed to decide the contract for everyone, which must be adhered to for two years.   An arbitrator who knows nothing about your industry and company’s challenges, or your individual feelings and concerns.

That’s absolutely right. As crazy as it sounds, . . . those people we voted to represent us in D.C. would be voting to take away . . deny you the right to even have a vote!

Since when did ‘minority rule’ become part of the American way, or our justice system?

Anti Union SEIU? More Debunking of Free Choice Act Statistics

In the run-up to the Employee Free Choice Act vote you heard a lot about how often employers terminate union supporters (hint: according to organized labor's puppets it is an epidemic). I've argued before that these statistics are completely flawed. I won't rehash that here, but I thought I'd post this recent example of my argument. In this particular case the alleged discriminator is none other than SEIU Local 2000 in St. Louis. Their (now former) employee claims that he was suspended and later terminated for his union activity. Of course in a couple of years when the EFCA is back up for a vote charges like this will be used as proof that "employers" are firing employees left and right for union activity. If the SEIU needs a union avoidance consultant I hope they'll consider us.

Union Avoidance - UFCW Stonewalls Grievance of Its Own Employee

Here is an ironic unfair labor practice charge. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 is refusing to provide evidence needed to process a grievance on an unjust termination. But that's not the ironic part. The person allegedly terminated unfairly is a (former) employee of Local 7! (represented by the "United Local Seven Staff Union"). Just another example of how unions don't want the rules to apply until they are the employer. More ironic still, the next time the Employee Free Choice Act is paraded around charges like this will be one of the out of context statistics used to prove that employers fire union supporters. Click the charge to download a PDF version of it to read for yourself.

Union Corruption - House to Gut Anti-Corruption Budget?

Congress is about to gut the budget to stop union corruption. This may happen as soon as today, so your urgent help is needed.

Last month I wrote you about the Free Choice Act, which thankfully failed to get the votes required to stop a filibuster. Now organized labor's friends in Congress are at it again.

The Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) is the agency that is charged with finding and prosecuting union corruption. They are the group that changed the LM-2 form to make it more useful to union members and then put all the union financial reports up on the internet.

I testified twice in Congress several years ago while the OLMS was trying to get the LM-2 forms changed. We fought the AFL-CIO tooth and nail to get those changes made.

But unions aren't stupid. They know that the rules don't matter if there is nobody there to enforce them. So now unions want OLMS to have no funding to find and stop union corruption.

It looks like the Department of Labor's appropriation bill for 2008 will be on the House floor today, Wednesday July 18. David Denholm from the Public Service Research Counsel says that Rep. John Kline (R-MN) will offer an amendment to restore OLMS funding to its 2007 level.

Please contact your Representative in Congress immediately urging him or her not cut the OLMS budget.

Below is a message about this from Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. Please help spread the word on this by forwarding this message to as many people as possible. Thanks. Phil.

DERAILING THE LITTLE AGENCY THAT COULD

By Elaine L. Chao

At the Department of Labor, we've made a point of doing more, better and with less. Among the standout performers is the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS). Established in 1959 to protect union members from union corruption, OLMS was hamstrung from the get-go, saddled with inadequate regulatory power and woefully insufficient manpower. It has been nearly 50 years since OLMS was created, but it is only recently that the agency has had the backing it needs to even begin to fulfill its mission of protecting union members from union corruption. Now that effort is threatened as Congress singles out this anti-corruption agency for budget cuts.

After severe cutbacks in the 1990s, OLMS began rebuilding in 2001. Although still significantly below 1980s staffing levels, in the past six years OLMS investigators and auditors have referred cases to U.S. Attorneys resulting in 775 convictions and over $70 million in restitution for union members.

In 2003, the union financial disclosure form (LM-2) was revised for the first time since 1959. For the first time in history, unions were required to make meaningful disclosures of their finances. For instance, America's teachers - who make, on average, $47,800 annually - now can know that the President of the leading teacher union (National Education Association) makes five times as much they do ($272,000). He certainly has not been left behind. Union members are also discovering the extent to which their dues money is funding lavish trips for union officials to luxury resorts and other expensive perks, political activities and items unrelated to collective bargaining.

Many union officials vociferously opposed this increased disclosure of union finances. Compliance cost estimates were wildly exaggerated to argue against the new requirements. The AFL-CIO claimed that it would cost unions "more than $1 billion" and the AFL-CIO alone would spend $1 million to comply. In fact, filling out the new disclosure form cost the AFL-CIO $54,150. Unions had $22 billion in assets in 2005 - riches built on the dues deducted from the paychecks of union members. Union members are entitled to know where their money is going. Congress is all for boosting the Securities and Exchange Commission's budget so it can ride herd on businesses. But OLMS -- the unions' equivalent of the SEC -- is on the chopping block. Every other Department of Labor enforcement agency - all targeted at businesses - is getting a budget increase. Less than one-tenth of one percent of the department's budget goes to OLMS, the one federal entity charged with protecting union members from union corruption, and it is the one singled out for budget cuts. Anyone who is wondering what they may soon be missing should go to http://www.unionreports.gov.

The author, Elaine L. Chao, is the U.S. Secretary of Labor.

Employee Satisfaction Surveys: Action Planning

I got the following email today from a reader of my employee satisfaction survey eBook. I thought her question about action planning was so good that it might be interesting to others, so I am posting her email (excerpted) and my reply below. First, her email:

Dear Phil,

I'm taking you up on your offer [to help on survey issues]...I am focusing on the "action planning" part of employee surveys. Most follow-up guidelines state the obvious steps after a survey:
1. Understand the results
2. Provide feedback to respondents
3. Identify priorities
4. Develop an action plan
5. Implement
6. Follow up

I want to develop a specific, motivating guide for managers to carry out steps 2,3,4 - that is, how to conduct follow-up meetings that are engaging in themselves, and not motivation-killers as I have observed many to be. E.g. "So here are our scores. What should we do about them? Who wants to speak up first?" For me, a key issue is that the scores are just that: scores. They don't explain how people think and feel that caused them to give those scores, and managers/facilitators need to be able to elicit that information, both what people like and dislike about the current situation. I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I have some ideas on how I could create a facilitation package along these lines but before I "reinvent the wheel", have you got anything? Terrie

Here is my reply:

Terrie - Thanks for your email. You've laid out the problem perfectly. Feedback meetings are often downers and often become gripe sessions. The key is to focus on solutions and desired outcomes rather than problems (or scores - which you so aptly state are just numbers and don't really get to the emotion or energy behind an issue).

Let me offer this in terms of general direction. Ask people to think about how we might improve in the areas of concern and also to focus on strengths. Especially focus on things like:

1. When do we get this right? Rarely does an organization fail at something 100 percent of the time. When things are working well, what happens different in those circumstances? Is there a way we can make that happen more often?

2. What resources do we have available to us to solve this issue? This gets the group out of "constraints" thinking and more focused on how we can fix something. The understood part of this question is that we have the ability to improve in this area if we just focus our resources more appropriately.

3. What can you do personally in your daily life to help improve this area? One of the reasons action-planning meetings can get so negative is that there is a lot of focus on what "they" need to do to fix things and very little focus on how "I" may be contributing to the issue and perhaps can contribute to the solution. For this to work well, it is very important for the leader to assume their share of responsibility and to talk about what they will personally commit to doing to improve.

4. Ask folks to imagine that the organization is miraculously transformed and now acts perfectly in this area - what things are we doing different in this perfect world that we don't do today (again, thinking about the organization in a positive frame, as opposed to a negative one).

These tips aren't foolproof - nothing in organization development is. But the general tone of meetings should be much more positive and constructive if you focus in these areas. My thinking on these issues is influenced a lot by the writings of Peter Block (Flawless Consulting, Stewardship) and some of the Appreciative Inquiry stuff that comes out of Case Western's OD program. Consider looking in those areas for more ideas on how to structure your meetings.

Good luck and let me know if this is helpful. Phil.

Employee Free Choice Act - First, Let's Organize All the Lawyers

As I promised in this employee free choice act post, here is a copy of the petition filed against the CWA International Union. The unit in question? All full and regular part time attorneys (including District and Senior counsel). Surely if anyone can be trusted to sign an authorization card with a full understanding of their rights and without undue pressure it would be the CWA's own attorneys. Right? Apparently not. The CWA says "no voluntary recognition for you" - notice there in the middle at box 7(a) where the attorneys requested voluntary recognition on May 6, 2007 only to be rebuffed on June 14th. I wonder if the CWA needs a union avoidance consultant to help with their campaign?

Employee Free Choice Act Fails...for now

This morning the Senate failed to invoke cloture on H.R. 800 - the union card-check legislation. For now the so-called Employee Free Choice Act is dead. It required 60 votes to move the bill to the Senate floor and the vote was 51-48 in favor of cloture - 9 votes short. There is still a Senate version of the same bill that is alive. Similar provisions could also be offered as riders to other legislation. Stay tuned.

Employee Free Choice Act - If Voting Is So Bad, Why Does the CWA Force Its Own Employees To Vote?

As the Employee Free Choice Act heads for a vote tomorrow, let's take a moment to remember the hypocrisy of this misnamed piece of political payback.

Today we got a petition from Washington DC (case no. 5-RC-16116, filed June 15th - I'll post a picture of the petition as soon as we get it) where 14 employees of the Communications Workers International Union filed a petition to be represented BY THEIR OWN UNION (not to put too fine a point on it, but this has got to raise some interesting employer-dominated union issues).

I've made the point before here, but if the Employee Free Choice Act and card-check recognition are such great ideas, why do unions force their own employees to vote when the unionization shoe is on the other foot?

The Employee Free Choice Act will hopefully die tomorrow. But it will be back.I hope by then that it will get a little closer scrutiny. I hope by then that Democrats will see the hypocrisy of taking away the right to a secret ballot election - and the right to bargain a contract without interference from government appointed arbitrators - under the principles of free choice.

There is no "free choice" involved in being subjected to the high pressure and intimidation tactics commonly used to get cards signed. There is no "free choice" involved in being told what your labor contract will be for two years by some outside arbitrator who knows nothing about your business.

This is a terrible law. The reasons given for its passage by supporters are complete fabrications. The current law works well - you can tell that by listening to how many employers complain about its unfairness (you really should get worried when one side is silent about the fairness of a law). Could the system be improved? Certainly. But this law is not the answer. Speeding up penalties for violations of the current Act is a good idea. So is funding the Board so it can do its job. But taking away the secret ballot and allowing unions free rein to intimidate workers into signing authorization cards is not the answer.

The unfortunate thing is that even these changes are unlikely to even save the unions who are supporting them. The bottom line is that employees know that unions just don't deliver on their promises anymore. They can see with their own eyes that unionized employees are no better off - and sometimes they are worse off - than non-union ones.

You can throw out of context statistics around all you want. Unions aren't losing market share because of employer intimidation or unfavorable laws. They are losing market share because they just aren't any good at delivering the services that they promise to members.

Top 100 Labor Attorneys

We just released our list of the Top 100 Labor Attorneys (plus a handful of ties - I think there are 104 total on the list if you want to be precise, but hey, I went to Michigan where the Big 10 actually has 11 teams so we rounded down when naming the list...). Congratulations to everyone who made the list. For those who aren't familiar with how we do the rankings, we take the most active attorneys (based on notices of appearance filed with the NLRB) then cut anyone who has a losing record over those cases. There are over 8,000 attorneys in the database, so this is quite an honor. Again, congratulations.

Free Choice Act - FIrst Quarter 2007 Election Results

BNA just reported its statistics for elections in 2006 (for a great post on this see the Labor Pains blog). Not to brag, but BNA's statistics are SO last year. To see the most current union election results, check out LRI Online.

You can download a chart with the first quarter 2007 election results here. To save you the suspense, elections are down another 15% this year, with unions continuing to win certification elections at a 62.4% clip (better than first quarter 2006).

You may wonder how can we get our data so much faster than anyone else? I'm not sure we do get it any faster - but we definitely make it available faster than anyone else in the business. Speed kills.

Employee Free Choice - CWA Not Into Voting

I am a little late to the party on this (the website says it went up in 2005), but I saw for the first time today a great site by a lady named Linda Sexton. Linda was elected president of CWA Local 9509 in a secret ballot election. Except the CWA didn't like how the vote turned out. Instead of installing their new president, Sexton was denied her office. The union was fined several thousand dollars for refusing to pay Sexton wages due (oh, by the way, this money came out of union dues). As of now it appears that Sexton still has not been awarded the seat she won in the election - 2 years later!

Small wonder unions like the CWA are opposed to secret ballot elections. Makes things too messy, when it is just so much easier to just put your cronies into power.

This case also illustrates how difficult it is to prosecute union corruption. Take a look at my monograph on union corruption published by the National Legal Policy Center's labor accountability project for more information on this problem.

Employee Free Choice Act - Harassment and Threats To Get Cards

I ran across an unfair labor practice charge that I thought was interesting. You can download a copy of the charge here but the basic point is that (surprise, surprise) the union used a variety of heavy-handed tactics including, harassment, intimidation, threats, and bribes to get authorization cards signed. I guess that's a lot easier than just delivering results for your members and standing on your record... Free Choice indeed.

Employee Free Choice Act - SEIU 49 Petition Update/Correction

I just got a comment from Sarah who says she actually works in the bargaining unit covered by the SEIU 49 petition. I posted her comment to my original post on the subject, but thought I would also do a new post so nobody misses it. According to Sarah, SEIU 49 DID voluntarily recognize the union in this case and the petition had to be filed to merge two previously separate bargaining units. She says the NLRB is requiring this. That does begin to shed some light on this petition, although I would be interested in hearing a perspective from someone at the OPEIU local who is apparently losing some members. I also wonder why the OPEIU members decided to move into this new union? In any event, I stand corrected. Thanks, Sarah.

EFCA - SEIU Petition: Opposes Employee Free Choice

I got a lot of requests for an actual copy of the SEIU petition I talked about in this EFCA post. You can see a copy of the actual petition here. Interestingly, this same local was banned from card-check organizing for 6 months by the NLRB for its abuse of the employee card-check process in another case. No wonder they don't accept the signed authorization cards of their own employees.

Employee Free Choice - SEIU Doesn't Agree with EFCA?

Further proof that the union walk doesn't match their talk about employee free choice. SEIU Local 49 in Portland forced its own organizers to file a petition with the NLRB for an election this month (case 36-RC-6381) instead of voluntarily recognizing them based on authorization cards. If a union isn't willing to trust cards signed by union organizers, why on earth should we trust cards signed by anyone else? Once again, free choice apparently is only appropriate for people OUTSIDE of unions.

Employee Free Choice Act - Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

The Employee Free Choice Act now heads to the Senate. If only a Senator could be fired every 17 minutes...

Ted Kennedy’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP?) Committee received testimony on the proposed law on March 27th and then submitted the bill to the Senate 2 days later. Seems odd to take testimony on a bill that hadn’t even been proposed yet, but this thing’s introduction was a forgone conclusion ever since Democrats swept last November’s elections.

The text of the Senate version of the bill is not available. What is available is the list of cosponsors – there were only 46 of them. Four Democratic Senators refused to co-sponsor the bill: Sen. Lincoln, (D-AR), Sen. Nelson (D-NE), Sen. Pryor (D-AR), and Sen. Salazar (D-CO). This is surprising.

The AFL-CIO has been boasting for weeks that it has 52 votes in the Senate, which at this point seems unlikely. Of course things can change awfully quick in Washington. These four Democrats are certainly going to start getting a lot of heat from their union contributors – so is Arlen Specter, a Republican who co-sponsored similar legislation last session.

Unions provided the usual suspects during the hearing to testify in support of the legislation, including law professor Cynthia Estlund and Dr. Lawrence Mishel of the primarily union-funded Economic Policy Institute. They – along with Ted Kennedy, the AFL-CIO and just about every other supporter of this legislation - continue making the ridiculous assertion that employees are fired for union organizing every 17 minutes.

This claim about firing employees during organizing campaigns has been repeated by unions and their supporters so many times that at this point it is just accepted as fact. So I think it bears repeating here that the claim is based on an intentional misreading of NLRB statistics. It is a lie.

The claim is made based on NLRB statistics which state that in 2005 over 35,000 employees received back pay from the NLRB in board proceedings (either a Board order or a voluntary settlement between the parties). What union supporters and the so-called academics who write and repeat this stupid statistic fail to mention are the following facts:

• These 35,000 employees charged both companies AND unions with unlawful conduct. Unions are also charged with unlawful conduct and required to pay back pay to employees.
• Many of these employees are already union members. For example, I know personally that 200 of these 35,000 employees received back pay related to a strike in 2005. That is only one case. These employees – and certainly thousands more like them – were not fired for trying to form a union.
• In many – if not most – of these cases, there is never a finding of unlawful activity by the employer. Instead employers and unions often settle cases in order to avoid the expense, delay and aggravation of going through a Board hearing process. In the case I mentioned above there was no finding of unlawful conduct whatsoever – it was a voluntary settlement.

Are people sometimes fired illegally during union organizing campaigns? Sure, it happens. And the law prohibits that and penalizes an employer for doing it. In some cases it can actually lead to a bargaining order where the union is brought in without winning an election – sounds kind of like the EFCA. Is the behavior widespread? Not by a long shot.

I can only speak from my own personal knowledge of the industry, but that knowledge is extensive. I don’t know of any lawyer or consultant who recommends that clients fire union organizers. In my career every arguably unfair termination occurred before I got on the scene - and I've advised clients to reinstate someone prior to there ever being a charge or a hearing because of the factors listed above. Most of the time the organizer is treated much more favorably than they would be absent the organizing campaign. This is because companies fear creating a martyr or buying an unfair labor practice charge. Ironically, treating an organizer this way is actually illegal, but it is much more common in my experience. An employer who discriminatorily fires an organizer is stupid, plain and simple.

Employee Free Choice Act - HR 800 Passes the House

This afternoon the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Employee Free Choice Act by a vote of 241 to 185.

The vote broke down right along party lines with the following exceptions: 13 Republicans (Ferguson, Fossella, Murphy (Tim), McHugh, McCotter, LoBiondo, LaTourette, King (NY), Saxton, Shays, Smith (NJ), Walsh (NY), and Young (AK)) voted in favor and 2 Democrats (Taylor and Boren) voted against. Boren surprised me a bit because he is former Senator Boren's son - old line established Democrats - and from a relatively liberal district - well, liberal for Oklahoma anyway. Gutsy vote and I applaud him for it.

Now the fight goes to the Senate. This is where the sledding will get a little tougher for the bill's proponents. It is not clear when the Senate will take up the matter, but let your Senator know how you feel about the issue.

Why Unions Should Propose the ENCA Instead of the EFCA

Last month I discussed the hypocritical fact that unions oppose elections only when they aren't the employer. Since then I remembered another case where unions like to force the “unfair” secret ballot election process on employees – decertification cases.

Ironically, the Employee Free Choice Act (which is slated to fly through the House of representatives this week) only outlaws secret ballot elections for certification elections. Decertification cases – where members frustrated with their union try to rid themselves of their bargaining representative – remain covered by the "unfair" secret ballot election process.

Today union members who are disappointed with their bargaining representative are forced to go through the cumbersome process of filing a petition with the NLRB (most of the time even this can only occur during one 30-day window every 3 years) and seeking an election. After the petition is filed employees are subject to a whole host of legal maneuvers, meetings and high pressure from their union to vote against decertification. Some members are even threatened with discipline, fines or even expulsion from the union for “conduct unbecoming” of a good union member.

It is hard to see how this “unjust” secret ballot election system can stand when a much simpler card-check process could be used in its place. Unions deserve much of the credit for bringing these problems with secret ballot elections to light. Now it is time for them to step up and throw their support behind an amendment to the EFCA that makes clear how opposed they are to these secret ballot elections.

I know this must just be an oversight by unions and their Democrat friends in the House. Now that this oversight has been brought to light, I am hoping that the EFCA is amended to make secret ballot elections unnecessary in decertification cases where signatures are collected by the majority of employees in a bargaining unit. The same rule should also apply in right to work states where a majority of employees covered by a union contract choose not to belong to the union.

I hope it is obvious that my proposal here is only partially serious (although if this ridiculous law does eventually pass it definitely should include the same rules for decertifications as it does for certifications). But let me pull my tongue out of my cheek for a moment to make a more important point.

Could the way unions are selected (or rejected) be improved? I have no doubt that it could. However, the proposals should not be designed to simply eliminate one group from the discussion. If the idea is that all companies should be unionized then why bother with all the window-dressing about the process and just pass a law requiring all companies to have a union?

“But that would be un-American,” you say? Precisely my point.

The underlying presumption of the EFCA – and the argument trumpeted non-stop by its supporters recently – is that the current election process is unfair. The evidence used is that unions are losing a lot of elections (and therefore a lot of members). If the process were more “fair,” the argument goes, then all these employees who really want a union would be able to get one.

The problem with this reasoning is that it runs exactly counter to the facts. The sad truth (sad if you are a union, that is) is that unions actually win a higher percentage of elections today than they have in decades (the win percentage for all unions was 61% in 2006, with many unions winning over 70% of the time). Even when companies use consultants and attorneys, the union win rates are up. I know – we keep track of the win rates and have for years.

The real problem unions have is that fewer and fewer people are interested in their message. Unions will blame anti-union employers, the law, the media and just about anyone but themselves for this problem. Yet the truth is that when employees are given a chance to hear both sides of the union story they overwhelmingly decide that unions just aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. And that is the biggest problem for unions.

So the EFCA is just another finger in the dike for unions. Even if it is passed and signed into law (which obviously won’t happen while the current administration is running the show) I doubt unions will see much success in organizing. That is why I think unions should sponsor the ENCA (Employee No Choice Act) which simply says that every company must have a union once it hires its second employee. There is plenty of room on the bandwagon right now, but don’t wait too long because that is where we are headed.

Employee Free Choice Act: Do As I Say, Not As I Do Part Deux

I forgot about another case where unions like to force election - decertifications. Ironically, the Employee Free Choice Act (which was just voted out of Comittee this week on a party line vote) only outlaws secret ballot elections for certification elections. Decertifications remain covered by the "unfair" secret ballot election process.

I know this must just be an oversight by unions and their Democrat friends in the House. Now that it has been brought to light, I am hoping that the EFCA is amended to make secret ballot elections unnecessary in decertifications where signatures are collected by the majority of employees in a bargaining unit (or perhaps even where a majority of those employees choose not to be members in right to work states). What's good for the goose...