I'm amazed at the amount of negative press in the Wall Street Journal and other pro-business rags against the Employee Free Choice Act. Today, the founder of famed big box store Home Depot speaks out with his op-ed Bad Labor Law Is a Path to Economic Ruin in the WSJ. A couple of weeks ago big boxer Wal-Mart raised the alarm and started holding mandatory meetings for all managers and supervisors warning about the EFCA, which will add penalties for violating the 71 year old National Labor Relations Act.
One thing Wal-Mart and Home Depot have in common is that they have utilized their humongous size to run Mom and Pop stores out of business. In addition to beating down suppliers on price, they also have an unfair advantage in beating down employees who might otherwise seek better wages and benefits. Mom and Pop don't worry about Federal Labor Law, because they don't have sufficient employees to fall under the National Labor Relations Act.
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Even the medium sized businesses that do have a few dozen employees and the $500,000 in interstate commerce to fall under the act, don't have the anonymous workforce to benefit by violating the right of employees to join together.
When half your workplace is on the same softball team, they are already united. Not so with the big box stores. Currently it is more cost effective for big boxers to fire union supporters rather than take the chance of a employees uniting to seek decent living wages or health benefits.
The big boxes complain about a provision of the EFCA dealing with "card check" procedures, a method of showing majority support for a union that was ruled constitutional by the Supreme Court in 1969. Currently an employer can challenge a "card-check" election for no cause, and then fire union supporters. The Employee Free Choice Act would require illegal coercion or another cause before an employer could challenge the results of an election. It would also add penalties for firing union supporters.
Chambers of Commerce and GOP'ers like Presidential hopeful John McCain say that card check organizing doesn't resemble American Democracy and insist that secret ballot elections are necessary to ensure workers have a democratic right to vote like in normal U.S. elections.
Ignoring for a moment that U.S. employees do not have the same rights at work that they have as citizens, lets give the GOP the benefit of the doubt and make union elections more democratic by simply holding secret ballot elections for employee organization on an annual basis.
This would be the Democracy that Americans are used to, not any of these "card check" signature drive elections, or requiring 30% of employees to petition before even holding a secret ballot election. The National Labor Relations Board should simply hold an election every year, just like the rest of the United States. Unions and other employee organizations like bowling leagues could be formed by secret ballot. This would eliminate the possiblity of being coerced into bowling even if you don't really like that sport and only do it to win points with your manager!
Possibly much of the time employees wouldn't bother to vote, just as many Americans never bother to vote. This kind of voter apathy is our constitutional right. Imagine if every year 30% of Americans had to sign a petition to hold an election....how often would we jump through that hoop? The elections still need to be held every year, just in case people do feel it necessary to vote.
So rather than debating if employees can show majority support for a union through card-check signature drives, work slowdowns, or by striking in front of an workplace, maybe Congress should add the much needed penalties for violations of labor law and make union elections an annual event to more closely mirror American Democracy.
I wonder how the big box stores would enjoy real democracy and annual union elections? It might require them to fight unions the old fashioned way....by setting wages and benefits close to union scale to make the burden of organizing seem unnecessary.
(a footnote: SEIU literally just marched by to protest against proposed health benefit cuts for County Employees....too bad all employees don't have the right to join together. Without the Employee Free Choice Act only unionized employees have any labor right. With the EFCA we will have the right to join together, and employers will raise wages and benefits to remove the need to join together. Thats how it was back in the 1950's, the heydey for America's middle class.)