LaborPains.org

Our Executive Committee Chairman King Banaian has a great post on the logic behind the Minneapolis Star Tribune citing EFCA as a reason not to endorse Ashwin Madia, but ignoring Elwyn Tinklenberg’s equally egregious misstatements on the issue.

In their editorial declining to endorse Democrat Ashwin Madia (a rare thing for this very liberal newspaper), the Minneapolis Star Tribune cited Madia’s dishonesty on EFCA.

As the Strib put it:

At the last debate, Madia was less polished on policy than his two rivals and repeated an error made in his endorsement interview — that the Employee Free Choice Act would not allow a unionization drive to bypass a secret ballot.

Now, we know well how often supporters of EFCA have “repeated an error” about what the bill actually does, namely take away the private ballot rights of Minnesota workers. 

It’s nice to know that honest liberals like George McGovern and, in this case, the Minneapolis Star Tribune are willing to stand up for an old fashioned democratic value, democracy in the workplace.

We hope the Star Tribune and others will join us when we call out politicians who “repeat errors” about EFCA when this bill comes up again early next year.

In the third and final debate between Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and union puppet Bruce Lunsford the candidates clashed on issues dealing mainly with the economy and energy.

But when it came time for the candidates to pose questions directly to each other, we learned that Bruce Lunsford is more than willing to fight for the rights of terrorists but not Kentucky workers. It’s hard to believe, but unfortunately it’s true.

Lunsford has been an avid supporter of the deceptively-named Employee Free Choice Act, which would strip workers of their right to a private vote when it came to the issue of unionization. Lunsford, who is beholden to the unions cash and support, wants to take away every last bit of democracy in the workplace by forcing workers to declare their support for a union in public only to help unions increase their membership…otherwise known as forced unionization. In other words, Lunsford wants to take away your privacy. Keep this in mind as you read further.

So Thursday morning, McConnell posed the following question to Lunsford:

“Ft. Campbell of course is in Western Kentucky; it’s right on the tip of the spear in the war on terror. One of the tools that many of us felt would save lives was the terrorist surveillance act. In the wake of 9/11, it was an opportunity to intercept terrorist to terrorist communication overseas. One of the few positions my opponent has been willing to take, and on this he’s to the left of Barack Obama, was that he said he would have opposed the terrorist surveillance act………so Bruce, maybe you’d like to share your opposition to the terrorist surveillance act with this audience.”

Lunsford’s response:

“You can have views in this country. I strongly believe in the right to privacy. I believe it’s why people come to America. I believe it’s what makes America a great country.”

Lunsford goes on to say that he thought the bill needed more “protections” for citizens and then tells the audience, “I will never stop fighting for the right to privacy in America. I think it’s what makes us great.”

So Lunsford wants more privacy and protections for terrorists who are communicating with each other overseas? He wants terrorists to be able to communicate freely because their privacy should be respected?

But he wants to take away the privacy of Kentucky workers when it comes to their vote on unionization?

Let us get this straight, according to Bruce…..terrorists deserve their privacy and workers don’t.

Bruce – we think you’ve got some explaining to do.

NOTE: This exchange between the candidates starts at 1:39:00 on the video.

Talking amongst friends, pro-union-Dems refer to the deceptively-named Employee Free Choice Act as a “feedback loop” for the Democratic party. To that point, Sen. John Ensign had this to say about EFCA:

“It would make Republicans the minority party for the next 40 to 50 years,” said Ensign of the EFCA.

Claire Berlinski isn’t an expert on labor unions, she’s an expert on Margaret Thatcher. So why am I writing about her? Because of her great article in the City Journal regarding Thatcher’s 1980 Employment Act. Berlinski writes:

When Thatcher was elected in 1979, Britain had just endured a winter of discontent—a season of strikes and trade union agitation so severe that the nation stood effectively paralyzed. Food supplies were interrupted, whole industries choked, and exports fell. “We don’t want to increase our trade with you,” said the Soviet trade minister to his British counterpart. “You’re always on strike.” Rubbish piled up on the streets that winter; at one point, so did human corpses. This was what had become of a nation that was once the world’s greatest trading power.

For obvious reasons, Thatcher put reform of the trade union law at the top of her agenda. Among the key provisions of Britain’s 1980 Employment Act was a change in the way government would recognize unions. At the time, workers voted to join unions—or not—in public, by voice vote. Dissenters suffered harassment and physical intimidation. Henceforth, Thatcher decided, new union membership agreements would require approval by means of a secret ballot in order to protect rank-and-file workers from bullying by union organizers. If allowed to vote secretly, she believed, ordinary workers would not vote for policies against their long-term interests—such as pay raises so incommensurate with production as to render British businesses uncompetitive, or strikes so prolonged as to make even the Soviets unwilling to buy British goods.

I suspect Minnesota labor leader Russell Hess is going to get a call from Washington, DC today. That’s because he is way off the reservation when it comes to talking about the deceptively-named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). In fact, he admitted to the Rochester Post-Bulletin that union leaders “almost never stop at [collecting cards from] 30 percent” of a workforce.

Why’s that a big deal? Because unions and their front groups have clung to the notion that EFCA will allow employees to exercise their right to a secret ballot election. To explain that, they say that the bill allows for the use of secret ballots if more than 30%, but less than 50% of a bargaining unit signs union authorization cards.

But as I explained before, unions “almost never” (to quote Hess) go into an election with cards from less than 65% percent of a company’s workforce. And under EFCA, the National Labor Relations Board is specifically barred from holding an election if the union turns in cards from more than 50% of the bargaining unit.

In fact, when I linked to a Teamsters website that explained that the “general policy of the [Teamsters] Airline Division is to file for a representation election only after receiving a 65-percent card return from the eligible voters in a group,” the Teamsters took the website down a few days later. (Thankfully, it’s preserved by the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.)

I know this is a lot of numbers, and sometimes labor law can seem complicated, but the bottom line is simple. Unions are selling EFCA on the ground that employees get a “choice” on how they want to unionize, but the bill puts the power in the hands of the union bosses, and they clearly have no intention of calling for elections if EFCA passes. In fact, here’s how AFL-CIO Director of Organizing Stewart Acuff once put it:

“NLRB elections just don’t work,” said Mr. Acuff. “We prefer card check because people can do it off premises, can do it in their homes, can do it without the employer looking over their shoulder.”

Here’s the Chamber of Commerce’s great new ad against EFCA:

“Bill,” by the way, is Kentucky AFL-CIO President Bill Londrigan. This is not the first video Bill’s antics have been featured in. You might remember him from this one as well:

Remember our call for a debate from yesterday? Well apparently the USA Today—America’s most colorful newspaper—agrees. Here’s the letter of ours they published today:

Call for open discussion

In his piece on the deceptively named “Employee Free Choice Act,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says corporate interests don’t want a real debate on the issue. Anyone who is familiar with the AFL-CIO and its history won’t be surprised to know that it is actually Sweeney who is ducking the issue (“Give workers free, fair choice,” Opposing view, Labor laws debate, Thursday).

As a former director of labor law for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, I have challenged Sweeney and other union leaders to an open debate on EFCA. They have either ignored the request or declined. The reason unions are afraid to debate this issue is because this bill would take away working Americans’ right to a secret ballot vote, and that is indefensible.