If Barack Obama becomes the next president of the United States, the relationship between management and labor will significantly change to the disadvantage of Corporate America.
As we have been writing for quite some time, a Democratic president will mean the passage of The Employee Free Choice Act, which will eliminate secret ballot elections for workers. It will be replaced by card checks. Using card checks, organized labor will be able to coerce and intimidate workers into signing cards affirming that they want to join a union. When a majority of such cards have been signed, a company’s workforce will have been unionized without management having had an opportunity to present its case to workers.
Another ingredient of The Employee Free Choice Act is mandatory arbitration. Mr. Obama supports a provision that if collective bargaining does not result in a decision within 120 days, then the case goes to binding arbitration, the result of which will remain in force for two years. One can imagine unions taking more than 120 days to negotiate a contract just so that binding arbitration will do what they could not do during collective bargaining.
In addition, Mr. Obama supports the revocation of the NLRB’s Kentucky River decision. Unions also support its revocation, so that more and more people can be classified as workers and fewer can be classified as managers. The result will be a significantly increased number of potential union members.
Mr. Obama also supports legislation outlawing the use of replacement workers for those who go out on strike. If companies cannot hire replacement workers, they will be at the mercy of strikers, who can bring economic ruin to companies that don’t bend to union demands.
If Corporate America is to counter the anti-management policies of a President Obama, it must undertake a vigorous program to educate workers to the benefits of remaining union free. America is at a cross roads, and corporations must make sure that they undertake the proper course of action to maintian high levels of productivity and profitability.
