House of Cards: Chicago Tribune Criticizes Employee Free Choice Act

The Chicago Tribune editorial page recently took a swipe at the proposed Employee Free Choice Act card-check bill, concluding, "the inaptly named Employee Free Choice Act would be good for labor bosses. But it wouldn’t be good for laborers."

The Trib writes:

The Employee Free Choice Act would allow unions to create local bargaining units without winning the vote of a majority of workers in a secret ballot.

The local unit would be certified if a majority of workers endorsed it by signing an authorization card handed out by union organizers.

Fair enough? Not really. The so-called card-check bill would not protect workers and it would not be "free choice." It would strip away their right to vote in secret, making it more likely they would face intimidation from organizers and other workers. The pressure would be on to check the card, whether or not they actually wanted a union.

Once the union was certified by a card check, the employer would have to accept arbitration if a contract couldn’t be negotiated within 120 days.

It’s clear why union bosses want this law. Union membership ticked up last year, but it has been plunging for half a century. In the 1950s, about one-third of U.S. workers belonged to a union. Now just 12.1 percent of U.S. workers—and just 7.5 percent of private-sector workers—are in a union.

There are many reasons for that decline, including the growth of the service sector economy, the movement of manufacturing jobs overseas—and the choice of workers who believe that a union would require them to pay dues but wouldn’t benefit them.

We’ve written about this before, noting that even George McGovern thinks this is a bad idea.

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