Big Labor’s Big Payback

The Senate is set this week to take up a measure that Democrats rammed through the House in a display that can be characterized as nothing short of payback to the labor unions. Hyperbolic rhetoric from the Right Side? I think not.

The “Employee Free Choice Act,” as it is dubiously called, promises to do just the opposite of offering any worker a free choice. Under current law, unions may organize through either a federally supervised private ballot election or a “card-check” system. The Democratic bill, however, would kill private voting rights altogether and make workers’ votes public through a mandatory card check, in which union bosses gather authorization cards purportedly signed by workers expressing their desire for a union to represent them. Yeah, right. If someone named “Louie” comes to me in the lunch room and asks me to sign a card for him, and his two big friends are gonna “help” me find my pen, what do you think my answer is? If I don’t want any trouble, then I’m taking the easy road and signing that card.  

Given today’s right-to-work mentality, with union membership dropping to all-time lows, the Big Bosses aren’t taking any chances on losing this fight important in intimidating companies to unionize. A secret ballot is a time-honored and workable tradition across industry. Heck, even members of Congress rely on the secret ballot process to elect their leaders and preserve their own political careers. Yet they casually look the other way when it comes to preserving this option for workers in their own districts!

The storyline of this vote is akin to something that belongs in “The Sopranos,” only this time, the screen doesn’t go dark, and thousands of workers and their businesses will feel the pain.