Card-Check for Thee, Gander Clause for Me
By Chuck Muth (10/16/06)
OK, let me try to boil this union “recruitment” thing down to it’s most basic level: An entrepreneur risks blood, sweat and tears, and often his life’s savings, to create a business - in the process creating jobs for others. Let’s say the company employs 100 people, all of whom willingly accept their jobs at the agreed-to compensation offered by the business owner. Then along comes the union Borg (“You will be assimilated!”).
A union agitator infiltrates, or “salts,” the workforce and immediately starts stirring up trouble. He or she convinces the employees that they’re overworked and underpaid. “And if you’ll just let our union be your negotiator,” the sweet-talking paramour promises, “we’ll get you what you have coming to you…and then some.”
The employees are promised the moon, the stars and the heavens above. They’re showered with flowers, jewelry, furs, chocolates and promises from the union that “We’ll always be with you, ‘til death do us part.” (Of course, when the sun rises in the morning the only thing the workers are likely to get is cab fare, but that’s another story for another time.)
Thanks to the efforts of the union agitator an election is scheduled. The 100 workers get to cast a secret ballot on whether or not they want the union to be their bargaining agent in salary/benefit/work-rules negotiations. If a majority of workers in this secret-ballot election vote in favor of letting the union do their talking for them, the union is in.
And a new Borg collective is formed.
The problem for unions though, as witnessed by their declining numbers in the private sector, is that fewer and fewer blue-blooded American workers, when given a choice in a secret-ballot election, are electing to join the union collective. Recognizing this, the unions are trying to get rid of secret-ballot elections and instead force companies to recognize their “right” to represent workers through an insidious process commonly known today as “card check.”
Here’s how a card check works…
The union agitator goes to each of the employees and asks (browbeats) them to sign a card stating that he or she wants the union. Once the agitator gets signed cards from a majority of the employees, the union wants to force the employer to recognize the union WITHOUT the inconvenience of holding a secret-ballot election.
It’s a lot easier for union agitators to threaten and coerce workers into signing a card in front of them than it is to control how that worker votes in the privacy of a voting booth, right? After all, a worker might very well sign a card saying they want the union out of fear - or just to get the union agitator out of his face and off his back. But if allowed to cast a secret ballot without fear of retribution by union goons, that worker is more likely to cast an honest ballot and vote against union representation.
So secret ballots, cast without fear or intimidation, are something the unionistas just can’t cotton any longer. So they’re pushing legislation on Capitol Hill which would FORCE employers to recognize a union based on card checks rather than secret ballots. And amazingly, there are actually some Republicans in Congress supporting this proposal.
Such un-American legislation should never see the light of day. But if it does, it ought to include the following “Gander Clause” - as in, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander: If a card check, rather than a secret ballot, can be used in order to certify a union - then a card check, rather than a secret ballot, should be able to be used to DE-certify a union.
That’s right. If management is able to obtain signatures from a majority of its workers saying they no longer want the union in their hair and in their wallets, then that should be good enough without going through the hassle of a secret-ballot decertification election. Shouldn’t it be just as easy to get out of a lousy relationship as it is to get into one?
But something tells me fairness and a level playing field aren’t what the union movement is all about today. Unions have found they can’t survive without a stacked deck. And that’s why mandatory “card checks” are the political cause du jour for Big Labor and the union bosses. Let’s hope Congress cuts the deck.
Chuck Muth
Original: http://theunionlabelblog.com/2006/10/15/card-checks-for-thee-gander-clause-for-me
(Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach ( www.citizenoutreach.com ), a limited-government public policy organization)
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