John Augustine – 12/21/08

This page was last updated on December 29, 2008.

Level playing field for organizing; John Augustine; Beaver County Times; December 21, 2008.

Mr. Augustine wrote a letter of similar quality entitled “Blame GOP for tax inertia.”

Below is a detailed critique of the letter.

“The American middle-class worker is being squeezed.

“Major corporations give their CEOs contracts that protect their salaries, bonuses and benefits, but they deny those same protections to hard-working men and women.”

[RWC] This letter is full of lies. This is the first. Employees of any business can choose to have labor union management represent them.

“When those same hard-working men and women try to come together to form a union to gain those rights, they’re often harassed, intimidated or simply fired by their superiors.”

[RWC] Note Mr. Augustine didn’t present any data to support his claim.

“It’s time for a change. The Employee Free Choice Act is a common-sense bill that was blocked by President George Bush and the Republicans in Congress. It prevents employers from bullying working people who want to organize a union and empowers workers by bringing democracy into the workplace and recognizing unions supported by a majority of employees.”

[RWC] This is a pure lie. The misnamed EFCA (aka “card check”) eliminates the secret ballot when employees choose whether or not to have labor union management represent them. Today, to force a government-supervised vote, labor union management needs to get only 30% of employees to sign a petition. If 50% + 1 of employees vote for the union, the NLRB certifies the union as the employees’ bargaining agent. With card check, labor union management would eliminate the possibility of a secret ballot if it got 50% + 1 of employees to sign a petition or check a card. In short, it would allow union activists to intimidate employees into signing the petition.

Keep in mind the secret ballot was one of the big things labor unions wanted back in their infancy. Indeed, it’s one of the demands U.S. labor union management makes of foreign governments. The alleged reason is to minimize the effect of intimidation by anti-union organizations. Today, however, labor union management now claims a non-secret ballot is needed to minimize the effect of alleged intimidation by employers.

“Unionized workers are the backbone of a strong middle class. They’re working harder than ever, but they have less to show for it than at any other time.”

[RWC] Note Mr. Augustine didn’t present any data to support his claim.

“It’s time we gave them the power to organize around issues like health-care benefits, a pension plan and safe working conditions. American workers deserve all the same rights as CEOs.”

[RWC] This is just class warfare stuff. What’s at the bottom of card check is that employees choosing union representation is at an all time low since union management’s heyday of several decades ago. About 50 years ago, about 35% of employees belonged to a labor union. Today that figure is only about 13%, and only about 8% in the private sector. Even those figures are inflated because of closed shop rules that force everyone working in a “union shop” to belong to the union. Card check is just a scheme of leftists and labor union management to coerce more employees to sign up for unions.

Finally, beyond activists and labor union management, I believe most folks aren’t buying into the elimination of the secret ballot.