With an Orwellian name, the "Employee Free Choice Act" has passed the House almost directly down party lines. The heart of the act is to change the law to allow unions to organize without a secret ballot. This concept of "card check" organizing is anathema to freedom. The name of the bill is HR800.
It works like this. The union comes in and calls a meeting of the employees. They talk about the benefits of the union and all and then pass out cards to everyone at the meeting. The employees are then asked to fill out the cards and sign them to indicate their intention to join the union. Group pressure is certainly a part of the event. In other words professional union organizers are standing there pushing while people make decisions. AND they know who signs up and who doesn’t.
For years the law has said that a secret ballot is required. This is a change to give unions a "leg up" and make it easier to for them to organize a shop. It’s not appropriate, not fair, and puts employees in a position of being dammed either way.
According to Marty Stein at the NPA, the bill has gone down to defeat in the Senate. This is good news. Read about it here. The NPA mounted a campaign of letter writing and joined with major industry groups opposing the bill. Good news.
JVH
