Labor Pains: Because Being in a Union can be Painful

Marcus on the Money

Home Depot founder Bernie Marcus has a fantastic Op-Ed in today’s Wall Street Journal on the need to stand up and fight against the deceptively-named Employee Free Choice Act:

My advice today about the Employee Free Choice Act is the same as I gave in England: You better fight to stop this undemocratic bill. I’m not the only one who thinks the proposed law violates long-established principles of democracy. In these pages, George McGovern, a former Democratic senator and a champion of organized labor, called this bill what it really is — “a disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor.”

To my astonishment, most CEOs in America are unaware of this planned hostile takeover of their human resources. I am retired, so this is not business for me. It’s strictly personal. I care deeply about the competitiveness of American companies and our system of free enterprise…

Those who support the bill claim that it will “protect workers.” This doesn’t pass the straight-face test. Mr. McGovern saw through the false rhetoric of the bill’s sponsors, saying that the measure “runs counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the unheard, [it] risks silencing those who would speak.”

It’s time to stand up and fight. America’s competitiveness, jobs and right to a secret ballot are at stake. CEOs, employees who want to keep their jobs in America — and those retirees like me who would not be where we are today but for our system of free enterprise — must stop this anti-democratic legislation.

Marcus was also recently on CNBC talking about the Employee Free Choice Act with Sen. Orrin Hatch.

Categories: Center for Union FactsEFACEnding Secret Ballots