The Employee Free Choice Act: Fact vs. Fiction

First, the continuing debate over EFCA is interesting to me, given that the law, as drafted at least, has absolutely no chance to pass in this Congress.  Even if Franken is finally seated, there just aren't 60 votes for this in the Senate.  That said, both sides seem to be teeing it up full bore, so I can only assume they really want to influence the direction of the compromise bill that is to come (and that certainly could pass).

On the merits, I'd say this ad is a mixed bag.  It is more than misleading to claim, as does this ad and as do most EFCA proponents, that this act won't eliminate secret ballot elections on unionization -- the fact is that there will be no such elections.  The debate here is about what is the best method for determining the employees' free choice of whether to be represented or not.  To say that workers will "choose" to abandon elections -- and that they will do so by a procedure, card check (a/k/a "majority sign-up"), that does not involve any election is completely circular logic.  Moreover, it's the union, not the workers, who will choose whether to file an election petition -- so let's see, will they choose to use their new-found right to submit 50% of the cards and be automatially certified, a process they maintain is urgently needed and perfectly legitimate, or will they pass that up in favor of the election procedure that they assert (in this very ad, even) is horribly broken and subject to awful employer coercion?  I wonder?

For the same reasons, the second point is where I think unions would be smart to focus -- don't insult our intelligence by saying this doesn't replace the secret ballot, tell us why card check is a better (or at least reasonable) replacement.  These are good points about how neutrality agreements have led to the use of agreed card check, although obviously things would be more contentious if the employer had not signed off (i.e., if EFCA has mandated that 50% of the cards means the union is in).

Next, the so-called study showing that 50% of employers threaten to close down is just laughably wrong.  If you're going to comission a self-serving study (and I have no doubt this was union sponsored), at least come up with some half way plausible results. Don't claim to have won re-election with 99% of the vote.

Finally, the question of whether this will help the economy is another good point.  This too is debatable, but it certainly stands to reason that more middle class wage earners would mean more consumers for products made by business, which would aid the economy.  I think the question is whether the middle class can really be recreated in the image of 1950s America when we are in the global economy, but this remains one of the better debating points for unions in my opinion.

So, two out of four ain't bad, but as I said, this is not the bill that is really going forward, so let's renew the debate once we we see that.