The Economic Consequences Of ‘Card-Check’ Forced Unionism

The AFL-CIO’s massive lobbying and electioneering machine is now being
challenged by a formidable PR problem: Its number one legislative objective is opposed
by a majority of the union rank and file!

For month after month, union lobbyists have been twisting the arms of Capitol
Hill Democrats and Republicans alike in a bid to get a majority of U.S. House members
to go on the record in support of the “Card-Check†Forced Unionism Bill (H.R. 3619/
S. 1925). Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) are
the lead sponsors of this measure, which they have cynically mislabeled as the
“Employee Free Choice Act.â€

As this study is published, 207 out of 435 House members and 32 out of 100 U.S.
senators are cosponsors of the card-check bill, which would effectively ban employee
secret-ballot elections over unionization in the private sector.

Card-check organizing is already a favorite Big Labor tactic, but as yet isn’t
mandated by federal law. It empowers union officials to force a business’s employees to
accept a union as their “exclusive†bargaining agent solely through the acquisition of
signed union authorization cards. Individual workers under the watchful eye of union
organizers may be tricked or intimidated into signing themselves, and ultimately all of
their nonunion fellow employees, over to union-boss control.

Under federal labor law, employees who have a union acting as their exclusive
bargaining agent may more accurately be described as being under a union monopoly.
The individual employee, whether a union member or not, is unable to bargain with the
employer over pay, benefits, or working conditions on his or her own behalf unless union
bosses first grant their permission.

Law-abiding employers who do not want their independent-minded employees to
be subject to union monopoly rule may currently insist that all affected employees at least
get the chance to vote in a secret-ballot election before a union is granted exclusivebargaining
privileges. But the Miller-Kennedy bill would eliminate that small safeguard.
Consequently, during unionization drives only the views workers express while being
monitored by union officials would count