Black & White and Cardinal Red All Over

The Employee Free Choice Act

It’s pretty rare that a piece of legislation comes along that motivates the big business bosses, rightwingers, and anti-worker wingnuts into supporting a secret ballot election for union workers but the Employee Free Choice Act has managed to do just that. Imagine that all these forces are now aligned in promoting the secret ballot election to determine whether a company’s labor force should unionize when they have spent decades manipulating the process to circumvent this very action. They have taken control of the National Labor Relations Board and stacked its membership with pro-business and virulent anti-union shills. They have gotten republican Congresses to pass more restrictive legislation that makes it harder for unions to come into being and allowing more and more interference by employers to legally prevent elections from even taking place. What changed these closed minds into rabid advocates of this heretofore unwanted election? The card check. Simple.

What exactly is a card check? It is a card that a person signs when they want a union to come in and represent them in labor negotiations. If more than 50% of workers sign this card, the union is authorized. Boom. Just like that. Well, no wonder these bosses don’t like it: they have no control over the process. They have control over the hours a person works, they have control over their health benefits (if any), they have control over the wages they pay a worker, they have control over whether that worker gets promoted, they have control over the vacation days a person gets, they have control over the number of sick days that are allowed, they have control over the computer you may have to use to do your job, they have control over your contarct with the outside world while at work, and many other things but they do not have control over whether you decide to sign a card that gives you union representation and that pisses them off.

Look at this like voting, if you will. Most people wait for election day to cast one’s ballot. During the course of the campaign, the various candidates bombard you with their messages appealing for your vote. Some use straight forward messages telling us what they plan to do. Some appeal to our patriotism. Others descend into scare tactics to frighten you to vote against your own best interests. There are some voters who made up their minds early on and want to vote and be done with it. It’s called Early Voting. They cast their ballot before the polls open officially but their votes are counted as if they voted on election day.

The workers who do a card check are essentially doing the same thing: they are voting early to avoid the hassle of management intimidation and election manipulation on the part of the bosses. No wonder management is now screaming about wanting elections. They can control that process and push their agenda over and over again until the voting actually starts. It gives them a big advantage. The card check levels the playing field and gives workers a chance to organize for better wages, health care benefits, better work rules, and quality workplace issues that acting alone they may not have a chance to get. 

What scares pro-business types about this legislation is that it gives workers a choice on how to unionize: pursuing a secret ballot election OR doing a card check. Thus, the name of the bill, the Employee Free Choice Act. Anyone who tells you that this bill eliminates the secret ballot either did not read the bill or they are lying about it. 

The challenge for these business types is simple: if you really want a secret ballot for unionization elections, stop putting up roadblocks to the process. Stop hiring union buster anti-labor goons to break up unionizing efforts. Stop firing workers who express an interest in unionizing. Stop delaying elections numerous times. Stop intimidating workers with browbeating meetings on the issues. Stop threatening to close the company if the union wins. Stop negotiating in bad faith with workers. A secret ballot election should be done promptly with a minimum of hassle from either side but that is not the reality of labor relations in America today. 

When businesses can agree to stop the illegal practices they have used for years there would not be the need for this legislation but that doesn’t look like it will happen in this century. The Employee Free Choice Act is a simple tool to help level the playing field for workers. No wonder rightwingers, businessmen, and corporate shills don’t like it. Fair play has never been their strong suit because they know if the field is level they lose most of the time. Let’s hope a Democratic Congress can help clear the mines from the grounds and give American workers a fresh start.