Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE, slams unions and labor rights by comparing unionized workers to IRS employees in his Business Week column. A great strategy from the Right to make average Americans hate labor rights even more by associating them with everyone's favorite: the IRS.
Jack preaches of the evils of allowing people the option of negotiating with the power of a group:
...the IRS touches so many people. And its inability to change due to lack of differentiation may soon become a much wider problem.
Why? The answer is the Employee Free Choice Act, proposed legislation that aims to remove the secret ballot from organized labor elections, which could foster union-building.
The Right overwhelms any beliefs in allowing democracy at work. For example, Boeing employees now on strike are portrayed as overpaid in the Seattle market. Is it that Boeing workers are overpaid, or are other workers that can't negotiate as a group underpaid? Since the latter employees compete in a global market including exploited workers in the third world, they are underpaid.
(more over the fold)
In 2007, the last time this legislation was politically alive, it passed the House but stalled in the Senate. Come January, there may be a new configuration on Capitol Hill, and the stall would likely shift into "full steam ahead." If so, companies large and small might face a wave of unionization efforts. And in short order, they might also be faced with the same limitations that constrain your employer. The IRS's hobbling lack of differentiation would no longer be the exception; it could be the rule.
http://www.businessweek.com/...
Jack parrots misinformation about the EFCA that is widely spread by far right groups. The Employee Free Choice Act does not aim to remove union secret ballot elections at all.
The process of employees petitioning for a union is very similar to the petition process that citizens use to put an initiative on the general ballot. In the case of a ballot initiative, the signatures of 5% of voters must be collected to hold an election. For a union, 30% of the employees must petition for representation by a union before a secret ballot election is held. When a clear majority of employees signs a petition seeking representation, a union can request to be recognized.
Now some would consider that if a majority has already not-so-secretly signed a petition requesting representation to negotiate as a group then holding a secret ballot election is redundant and unnecessary. Indeed, for many decades the National Labor Relations Board took this approach and recognized unions that were organized by majority card check signature petitions. Only in the case of illegal coercion was a secret ballot process required.
However, in 1966 the NLRB abandoned this common sense approach and let employers challenge majority card check elected unions even if no fraud or other illegal activity was suspected. This added significant delays to the process and taxpayer expense, however it allowed large employers to fire any union supporters. The penalty for these illegal firings and other forms of intimidation was nothing, and they became commonplace for unethical large employers that wanted to keep their cost of labor artificially low.
Contrary to Jack Welch's assertions, the Employee Free Choice Act does not eliminate secret ballot elections. When 30% of employees petition for union representation an election is held. When a clear majority of legally collected signatures petitioning for union representation, the NLRB uses their old process and recognizes the union.
Now Americans may not believe in Labor Rights when only government employees or a small minority of Americans still have them. It is clearly unfair that only employees in unions that were organized generations ago have the right to negotiate with the power of the group. However, that is an arguement to enact the Employee Free Choice Act to give all Americans the right to choose to organize when labor-management relationships shift too far on the side of management. Only a small sliver of Americans enjoying labor rights might be an arguement to eliminate all labor rights so that we can compete head-to-head with employers in the third world, but we should also be prepared to set the old and infirm in the woods for the wolves when they have out lived their usefulness. But that's not where I want America to lead. Jack Welch might.