The City Wire of Fort Smith, Arkansas, published a piece giving a former union leader space to announce that he opposes the elimination of the secret ballot that is the card check feature of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
His reasoning is spot on with why card check is a bad idea that will materially hurt American workers.
And then there is Neal Catlett, a former president of the union representing workers at Whirlpool’s Fort Smith plant who has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the local union.
Catlett, now retired from Whirlpool, opposes card check. He told The City Wire that he has seen plenty of “nonsense” among Whirlpool leaders and union leaders to know that anything other than a secret ballot will lead to intimidation, coercion and corruption on all sides.
“I strongly support secret ballots. Period. It doesn’t matter at what level, whether it is voting for a union or the president or your congressman,” Catlett said. “Your ideas should be personal as to if you want a union or don’t want a union.”
Catlett doesn’t argue with union leaders who say the current labor rules make it too tough and are tilted in the favor of business. But he says card check is the wrong way to create a more level playing field. And he also says unions use the same coercion and intimidation used by business owners.
“Doing away with the secret ballot is not good for the unions. It’s not good for any business. … Open voting creates an atmosphere of intimidation. It creates an atmosphere where people will use your opinion against you. I’ve seen the threats and I’ve actually seen the physical conflict, if you know what I mean, come from the business side and from the union side,” Catlett said. “I just don’t see how any process that is not private will protect the worker.”
Right from the mouth of a former union boss and right on. Union thugs will be unleashed by this bill. It needs to be torpedoed.
There’s still much work ahead to defeat this un-American and anti-democratic law.
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I don't understand
aardpig Friday, March 13th at 10:43AM EST (link)From my reading of the Wikipedia article on EFCA, I note that:
“In order for a workplace to organize under current U.S. labor law, the card check process begins when an employee requests blank cards from an existing union, and requests signatures on the cards from his colleagues. Once 30% of the work force has signed the cards, the employer may decide to hold a secret ballot election on the question of unionization.”
and then:
“If enacted, EFCA would require the NLRB to certify a bargaining representative without directing an election if a majority of the bargaining unit employees signed cards; however, employees may still request a secret ballot election if 30% of employees petition for one.”
This suggests that the secret ballot option is NOT being eliminated by EFCA. Could someone explain what I’m misunderstanding here?
“I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in A, B, C and D. Just who do they think they are?”. — B.G.
The devil is in the details, mate
E Pluribus Unum (Diary) Friday, March 13th at 11:06AM EST (link)under current law, *employers* may request a secret ballot.
According to the wikipedia article you cite:
*employees* may request a secret ballot election, if 30% of employees petition for one.
And with union thugs passing cards around, you can bet your grandma’s panties that never in the universe will thirty percent of employees request a secret ballot.
The employer no longer has the right to call a secret ballot, and the employees never will. So it is in effect gone as an option.
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Understand Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and card check
coffee260 Friday, March 13th at 10:44AM EST (link)I’ve noticed whenever someone debates the merits of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and card check they get bogged down in minutia. So I’ve come up with the easiest way to explain what is happening.
You have 2 candidates, the UNIONS and the EMPLOYERS. They both are campaigning for the workers vote. The UNIONS want them to vote YES and EMPLOYERS wants them to vote NO. After campaigning for their vote, both go back to their respective corners while the EMPLOYEE decides which candidate they will side with, the UNIONS or the EMPLOYERS. Come “election day,” the EMPLOYEE goes to the “polls” to cast their vote. They enter a PRIVATE BOOTH and pull the lever of their choice, either for UNIONS or against–meaning for the EMPLOYERS. What the EFCA will eliminate is the PRIVATE BOOTH in which the EMPLOYEE votes. No longer will the UNIONS have to campaign up until “election day.” All they will have to do is walk up to every EMPLOYEE, where ever they may be, and get them to vote YES or NO. IT would be like Barack Obama or John McCain going around to every person in America and handing them a ballot and telling them to vote for them right there on the spot.
If You Find Detroit Impressive and Dynamic... You're Gonna LOVE Card-Check
reaganiterepublicanresistance Friday, March 13th at 6:24PM EST (link)If you want the rest of the country to look like Detroit, just pass the card-check legislation that Obama seeks to pay-back his shady union-leader supporters with.
In today’s world, if someone else is willing to do what you do for less, you’ve got a problem. There’s simply no way to force employers to pay you more than what you’re worth over the long run, as the company will be destroyed by competitors with labor purchased at the market rate.
The gangster methods and ludicrous job rules of the UAW only worked for the short term benefit of a few, as the company, workers, and country all lose out as the enterprise is bled white. If you want to earn more money, you better obtain a marketable skill… the days of $50/hr for putting hubcaps on Cutlass Supremes is long, long gone.
When Reagan pushed the unions back, 20M jobs were created, and real GDP grew 30%. So who does the UAW help? Not American industry or workers as a whole-
With card-check, union goons can show up at your doorstep at 10pm to “ask” you to join the union. And guess what? You WILL sign- lol
Like most of Obama’s leftist proposals, there’s no precedent to suggest restoring union power will help the country as a whole- it’s historical revisionism, at best. Barack takes care of Barack #1… but political backers like Tony Rezko and unions are a close second. The country’s interests are a distant third, if that.
The UAW has been nothing but a tumor on the neck of the free-market capitalist system… and look what it got us.
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The Reaganite Republican