Payback Time: Union Check Cards

The big unions labored mightily to put Obama in the White House and narrowly missed achieving total control in Congress. Better luck next time. The millions of man-hours expended for shuttle services, phone banks, sign placement, rallies, marching and picketing put Democrats in a position to win it all. And now, Big Labor wants its pound of flesh. The Employee Free Choice Act, co-sponsored by Sen. Barack Obama, is nothing like free choice. The traditional secret ballot, protected by state and federal government, would be abolished in favor of a ‘check card’. Union organizers would be allowed to collect signed authorization cards from workers without benefit of confidentiality. Those who don’t sign the check cards would be harassed and intimidated until they did so. Employers wouldn’t be notified that a union organizing drive was underway until union bosses showed up with a contract. And this the unions call ‘modernizing’ the labor movement. The National Right to Work blog of November 2, 2008 has a detailed analysis of what’s really going on.

The Democratic Party is solidly behind the Employee Free Choice Act. Passage in the House is virtually a done deal and 60 votes are a near certainty in the Senate when Congress reconvenes. This is crazy. In those few instances where unions were allowed to get around the secret ballot, union membership skyrocketed to absurdly high numbers. Does anyone think that workers voted in a union of their own free will? Does anyone think those workers’ lives where improved in any significant manner? Certainly, no one believes that the employer suddenly acquired a more professional workforce. No doubt, the union bosses were able to extract some small pay increases almost immediately. But that didn’t make it into the workers’ pockets. No, it paid the newly instituted union dues. So who’s the parasite here? Employers create jobs. Employees fill those jobs. What exactly does a union do?

Eighty years ago, the unions had a valid reason for being. Forty years ago, much of that reason vanished when the cumulative effect of state and federal labor laws provided the same worker protections. There was no reason for unions to exist except for collective bargaining - representing workers as a group to negotiate for pay raises and expanded benefits. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, it didn’t take long for unions to begin demanding pay increases well beyond what employers could afford to pay. Why would a union do that? Simple: union bosses don’t get a raise unless the workers they represent get a raise. Yes, it’s shortsighted, it’s stupid and in the long run it’s destructive, but then no one has ever accused unions of being business-oriented or entrepreneurial.

But, union leaders are street savvy. They know the traditional manufacturing jobs they once represented are no longer viable. They also know that they’ll have difficulty organizing knowledge workers like engineers or software programmers, and small business employees. Instead, they’ve targeted local, state and federal government. Why? It’s an endless source of money, courtesy of the American taxpayer. No one’s in charge, no one is accountable and the unions can run wild. And, Democrats back their activities 100%. Can it get any better than this? Yes, it can. The Democrats also back the Public Safety Employee-Employer Cooperation Act, which forces local and state governments to negotiate raises through union bosses instead of directly with police officers, firefighters and emergency personnel. Some 22 states would have to change their laws in order to comply and thousand of first responders could no longer simply ask for a raise on an individual basis. 

The cash flow from government employee dues must be gigantic. But no one knows for sure. That cash flow will be used to push for a new organizing effort across the country the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the 1930s. It’s no coincidence this is going to happen on President Obama’s watch. In fact, it’s probably been in the planning stages for years.