Stephen, J. Cabot blog

July 31, 2009

EFCA’s Binding Arbitration: Down the Road to Ruin

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 3:58 pm

As we recently reported, the congress may remove card check from the Employee Free Choice Act, but it will still keep binding arbitration. With pro-union arbitrators making final decisions on union contracts, Corporate America will be facing one the most destructive challenges to collective bargaining.

If a company and union cannot come to an agreement, then a government appointed arbitrator will step in and make a decision for a first contract. In effect, someone who has little or no knowledge or experience about how a particular company is run will make a decision that will have far reaching financial consequences. This may have been exactly what organized labor wanted all along; in other words, card checks was a red herring, for binding arbitration will deliver precisely the results that unions want to obtain.

Binding arbitration may be used by a company and union to settle a specific individual dispute, but when it is used to determine an entire contract, the effects can be devastating. Salaries, wage and hour issues, medical insurance, length of paid vacations, seniority, could all be decided by a single arbitrator!

If Corporate America hopes to defeat the provision for binding arbitration in the Employee Free Choice Act, it must continue lobbying congress. If the unions succeed in making binding arbitration the focal point of the ACT, they will have set many companies on a fast-paced trip down a road to ruination.

July 23, 2009

Better Free Than Unionized

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 6:49 pm

According to a recent poll commissioned by the Center for Union Facts (CUF) and conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation, 82% of non-unionized employees do not want their jobs to be unionized! No wonder unions are desperate to have the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) passed by congress and signed into law by the president.

And Democrats in Congress, indebted to unions, continue to support the EFCA; it is the only way that union organizers can win new members, for the Act gives a decided advantage to unions over management. (Please read last week’s blog which enumerates all of the anti-management rules that would will take effect once the EFCA becomes law).

Once it does become law, the EFCA would, in effect, drive millions of American workers into the confining box of union membership where their dues would be used to support political agendas that they may be against.

The CUF poll proves that there is no national movement amongst workers to join unions. In fact, when asked about joining unions, workers find the prospect of no interest to them. Therefore, one can see that rather than being a populist movement, increased unionization is a cause embraced and promoted by Washington elites and union officials who will financially benefit from increased union dues, pots of gold that will cause union hearts to flutter.

July 17, 2009

One Down, Four to Go: EFCA

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 4:56 pm

This week, the U. S. Senate decided to eliminate card checks from its proposed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Unions will not be able to represent employees simply by getting them to sign cards expressing a desire to be represented by a union. This victory was won by the concerted efforts of Corporate America and all those who believe in the democratic principle of secret ballot elections.

 

The bad news is that a revised EFCA bill will call for a rapid time frame for new elections. Union elections would have to take place within a five to ten day period after 30% of workers had signed cards indicating that they want to be represented by a union. Current campaigns often run more than a month and often up to two months.

 

In addition, the revised bill would require that union organizers be permitted on company property.

 

As if that were not bad enough, the revised bill would also prevent management from requiring that workers attend anti-union, pro-management educational sessions.

 

Finally, the bill would contain a demand that employers, who fail to reach agreement on a contract with a new union, submit to binding arbitration. This, in effect, means that government agents will impose an agreement on managment, one which may be one sided and financially unsound.

 

The new bill will be voted on in September, so it is essential that Corporate America continue its vigorous lobbying efforts. It is also essential that Corporate America learns to deal effectively and proactively with the negative provisions of the revised bill before unions come calling on its workers.

June 12, 2009

Burning Union Money

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 5:22 pm

BURNING UNION MONEY

 

The Wall Street Journal and other publications have reported that the unions spent many millions of dollars to elect Barack Obama to the Presidency. In fact, the president of the Service Employees International Union, Andy Stern, stated: “We spent a fortune t o elect Barack Obama.” To that fortune can be added the many millions of dollars spent by the AFL-CIO. The unions apparently spent their members’ money not like drunken sailors, but like lobbyists on a mission.

 

Now Bloomberg News has reported that one of the AFL-CIO’s officials has circulated a report claiming that the union indulged in “creative accounting.” The union members would no doubt like an explanation of how their union went from a $45 million surplus to liabilities of more than $90 million. And the net assets of the SEIU went from $64 million to $34 million. Yet a few years back, Andy Stern vociferously declaimed that the AFL-CIO was spending too much on Washington politics and not enough on union organizing efforts. We can assume that both men finally came to an agreement after realizing that if they financed the election of a pro-union congress and president, they could spend a lot less money on organizing, especially if their indebted friends on Capitol Hill pass the Employee Free Choice Act.

 

When President Bush strengthened and dilated the union disclosure rules, the unions howled as if the hammer justice were about to smash their piggy banks. Now, however, Washington is overrun with union advocates, and they are listening to union concerns about the Bush Administration’s rules. If the unions aren’t asking for those rules to evaporate, then they certainly want them to be watered down.

May 15, 2009

Bad News for Corporate America

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 3:48 pm

Have you heard of Craig Becker? He is a recently named appointment of President Obama to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). While awaiting senate confirmation to take his new position, Mr. Becker is serving as Associate General Counsel for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which is run by one of the most aggressive union leaders in North America, Andy Stern.

 

Mr. Becker, like most members of organized labor, is not an advocate of secret ballot elections. While Corporate America has been gritting its teeth awaiting the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), it may have even more to worry about. Craig Becker wrote that employers should be not be permitted to attend NLRB elections and should not be permitted to challenge election results. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal reported that Mr. Craig wrote that “Employers should also be barred from ‘placing observers at the polls to challenge ballots.’ ”

 

The editorial continued: “Mr. Becker advocated a new ‘body of campaign rules’ that would severely limit the ability of employers to argue against unionization. He argued that any meeting a company holds that involves a ‘captive audience’ ought to be grounds for overturning an election. If a company wants to distribute leaflets that oppose the union, for example, Mr. Becker said it must allow union access to its private property to do the same.”

 

With its majority in both houses of Congress, the Democrats will no doubt confirm Mr. Becker as a member of the NLRB. No one likes to play cards with a dealer using a stacked deck; and under the Obama selected NLRB, the deck will be decidedly stacked against Corporate America. And that’s bad for economy, bad for America, and bad news for democratic traditions.

May 8, 2009

George McGovern Blasts The Employee Free Choice Act – Again!

Filed under: Employee Free Choice Act — Tags: , , , , , , , , — Stephen J. Cabot @ 1:13 pm

GEORGE MCGOVERN BLASTS

 

THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT – AGAIN!

 

George McGovern, former senator and presidential candidate known for his liberal viewpoints, has once again blasted the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) for its proposed debasement of democratic practices. His criticism appears on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal.

 

He was particularly irked by the fact that if employers and unions cannot reach agreements then the government will step in and impose, in each case, binding arbitration.

 

Under the National Labor Relations Act, which has been in place since 1935, employers are free to reject union demands, and unions can strike if they are dissatisfied with employer proposals. If, however, the EFCA becomes law, then government bureaucrats with little understanding of the unique subtleties of various positions will impose their own solutions. Such a process is hardly in keeping with the principles of collective bargaining.

 

Former Senator McGovern wrote: “A federally appointed arbitrator cannot be expected to understand the nuances specific to each business dispute, the competitive market position of the business, or the plethora of other factors unique to each case…. Compulsory arbitration is, in one sense, government dictating to employees what they will win or lose in the deal with no opportunity to approve the agreement.”

 

Such an outcome would be disastrous for Corporate America. Even George Meany, while head of the AFL-CIO, stated that “mandatory arbitration is an abrogation of freedom.”

 

Should Congress pass the EFCA (which seems more likely now that Senator Specter has switched parties) and should President Obama sign the bill into law, then America will be taking a major step away from the free market principles which have been the basis for the country’s remarkable record of commercial achievements, industrial innovations, and the creation of one of the most affluent societies in the history of the world.

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