Dear Readers:
Has anyone noticed the recent diatribe coming from the union bosses and their paid pushers (like American Rights at Work), concerning the hallucinogenically-named Employee Free Choice Act?
It goes something like this:
"[EFCA] will allow workers, not their employers, to choose the union formation process - either through an election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board or through majority sign up."
[You can also view the latest propaganda ad by ARAW here.]
Admittedly, when we first heard the EFCA-pushers' latest hyperbole stating that it becomes "the workers' choice as to whether or not there would be an election," we were a bit confounded since we knew that is not the case under EFCA from a practical or legal standpoint.
Being that we're extraordinarily right on all things related to unions and EFCA [okay, perhaps 99.99% is more in line with our record of accuracy on these issues], we wanted to do a bit of research on this issue before exposing the unions' latest deceitful tactics on EFCA.
Here's our findings:
If a majority of workers are tricked, intimidated, or otherwise duped into signing union authorization cards, do they (the workers) get a choice under EFCA to have a secret-ballot election? Practically (and legally speaking), NO.
Here's what both bills state:
HR 1409 [View the entire bill here.]
If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bargaining representative and that no other individual or labor organization is currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative described in subsection (a) [Emphasis added.]
S 560 [View the entire bill here.]
If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations designating the individual or labor organization specified in the petition as their bargaining representative and that no other individual or labor organization is currently certified or recognized as the exclusive representative of any of the employees in the unit, the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative described in subsection (a). [Emphasis added.]
DO YOU SEE A "CHOICE" IN THE ABOVE?
NO?
We didn't think so.
So, where do the union bosses and their feckless followers base their baseless claims of "worker choice?"
In sum, it is a smoke-and-mirrors, shell-game, depends-what-"is"-is, argument
Here's what they're talking about:
The only way a secret-ballot election would be held under the hallucinogenically-named EFCA is if a union could NOT get a majority of workers to sign union authorization cards.
For example, if a union could only trick 45% of employees into signing union authorization cards, then the union could petition the NLRB to hold an election (the same procedures that are used today), but it could not invoke the card-check provisions of EFCA.
However, that scenario is NOT the real world.
Anyone who has been around union-organizing campaigns as long as we have will tell you that it is only the most hapless, most-inexperienced oaf of a union organizer who will file a petition for an election without having a majority of cards signed.
In fact, nearly all unions have a minimum 70% threshold for signatures on authorization cards before they ever file for an election with the NLRB. Why? Because they know that it is easy to get cards signed BUT many workers will change their minds once inside a voting booth where workers can freely express their views through a secret ballot.
So, the unions' arguments that EFCA gives workers a choice is a specious one at best. Indeed, it borders on outright fraud, since they know (as do we--and now you) that union organizers won't tell the majority of workers to NOT sign a union authorization card so they can have a secret-ballot election.
More likely, union organizers won't even tell the majority of targeted workers that, by signing a union authorization card, they will be unionized without an election.
Oh, and while we're at it, here's another union myth we'll bust for you:
All the talk from pro-EFCA pushers about workers "forming a union" is more B.S. To "form" a union means that it is would be an independent collective of workers…independent of the Big Union Bosses.
In fact, if you watched Lavendar-lapeled Labor Lord Andy Stern on Lou Dobbs recently [view here] talking about "workers' choice" to "start an organization," you would have seen his rhetoric mirrors that of his rivals in the AFL-CIO and their desire to have workers "form" their own union. It's become the mantra of the Kool-Aid drinking EFCA pushers as of late…and it's poisonous propaganda.
If the Labor Lords wanted workers to form their own unions (as opposed to joining their already-existing unions), would Union Bosses really be spending hundreds of millions of dollars of their members' money to take away workers' right to vote only to have the workers form an independent association? Not hardly.
As we've been saying for nearly three years, the whole brouhaha about EFCA has nothing to do with workers' right to "form" a union and everything to do with suckering workers into paying dues into Big Union Bosses' coffers…It's a union bailout, pure and simple.
So, there you have it…Another union lie exposed.
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