Son Of Card Check

IBD Editorials ^ | July 22, 2009 | INVESTORS BUSINESS DAILY Staff

[Kaslin]

Organized Labor: Card check may be a dead issue, but companies aren't yet free of the union threat. An anti-business provision of the perversely named Employee Free Choice Act is still under consideration

---

If the card check process were to become law, the traditional method for forming a union would be replaced with a pro-union system.

In current practice, workers vote to either join the union or reject it through a secret ballot. A simple majority carries the vote. Under card check, a work force would become unionized if a simple majority signed the cards that are used to measure workers' interest in voting on unionization.

It's not hard to imagine that without a secret ballot, workers would be intimidated into signing cards and joining the union.

To their credit, a few moderate Democrats in the Senate believe card check is undemocratic. Their resistance is giving the majority leadership reason to strip card check from the bill. Without the moderates' support, the Democrats don't have the 60 votes they need to send the legislation to the floor for a vote.

But this doesn't mean congressional Democrats have given up on passing out gifts to the unions that help elect them.

[Kaslin]

[Iron Munro]

If management doesn’t agree to Card Check, Obama will confiscate the business, turn it over to the labor unions and replace management with a 19 year old Card Check Czar.

If management does agree to Card Check, Obama will let the Unions confiscate the business and replace management with a 19 year old Card Check Czar who is a member of the union.

[GOP_Lady]

Thank you, Kaslin.

My law firm released this last week:

“July 2009
Employee Free Choice Act Update

In an effort to help secure 60 votes (and avoid a filibuster in the Senate), some congressional supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) have proposed an alternate version of the Act that would drop the “card check” aspect of the bill and instead push for shorter election times (5 or 10 days)—sometimes referred to as “ambush elections.” If card check is eliminated from the EFCA, it is expected to substantially accelerate passage of the bill, as several key Democrats were reluctant to support the EFCA with the card check provision.

As you know, when the EFCA was introduced in the Senate (and passed in the House of Representatives), it had three parts:

· Card check;
· Mandatory arbitration for the first contract after union certification if a deal is not reached in 90 days; and
· Heightened penalties for unfair labor practices committed during an organizing campaign.

At this time, no new bill has been released, but it is expected that the latest version would include mandatory arbitration, heightened penalties for unfair labor practices and a new provision for shorter election times.

Under either version of the EFCA, union organizing efforts will increase dramatically. If you have not already developed your union avoidance strategy, we strongly urge you to do so now.”

[Cacique]

btt