McConnell: Employee Free Choice Will ‘Fundamentally Harm’ And ‘Europeanize America’
McConnell: Employee Free Choice Will ‘Fundamentally Harm’ And ‘Europeanize America’
Today, during an appearance at the National Press Club, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered a two-minute diatribe against the Employee Free Choice Act, announcing that “this is an issue on which there will be no bi-partisanship,” and that the act will “fundamentally harm and Europeanize America”:
I came here to speak about bi-partisanship, but this is an issue on which there will be no bi-partisanship…This is an outrageous proposal. It will fundamentally harm America and Europeanize America and we will have a big political fight over this.
Watch it:
First, the stat that McConnell trotted out from former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao (who is also McConnell’s wife) was completely distorted. He claimed that only 7 percent of the private sector (about 8.8 million workers) being unionized indicates that workers don’t want to join unions. However, an AFL-CIO survey found that there are 60 million American workers who say that they would join a union if they could.
So why is the percentage so low? As The Wonk Room has repeatedly noted, it’s because employers do everything that they can to prevent unions from organizing. As Ezra Klein explained:
People get fired. Employees are forced into captive meetings where they are threatened and intimidated and warned of plant closures. Union supporters get brutal shifts, unpredictable schedules,and cruel workplace treatment. Those things are happening.
And since McConnell warns that Employee Free Choice will “fundamentally harm and Europeanize America,” it’s worth pointing out that — even using data from the conservative Heritage Foundation — countries with the highest degree of “economic freedom” have “far more worker-friendly labor laws than we do in this nation.” This includes not just Europe, but Australia and Canada. As Seth Michaels noted, “In giving corporations veto power over how workers form unions, the United States is a rare exception among industrialized democracies.”
Employee Free Choice is not about the ludicrous concept of “eliminating the secret ballot” or “Europeanizing America.” As Paul Krugman said, it’s about enabling America “to take a huge step toward recapturing the middle-class society we’ve lost.”
14 Responses to “McConnell: Employee Free Choice Will ‘Fundamentally Harm’ And ‘Europeanize America’”
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I think EFCA will help America. I know the real threat to America comes from McConnell and the GOP.
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:30 pmAnd whats so terrible about becoming more like Europe? I have lived in several European countries and have found them to have a much higher standard of living there even if they don’t own as much crap as we do. They get to spend more time with their families, don’t have to worry about how they will pay for education or medical care, and have very little poverty compare to us.
What do they have to do to get these benefits? Pay a little more income tax and not allow corporations to make the rules under which labor functions. And yet they still manage to have massively profitable multinational corporations. So whats the problem?
January 23rd, 2009 at 3:57 pmEmployee Free Choice Now . Org
Educating The World on The EFCA.
Myth vs. Reality: The REALITY is the Employee Free Choice Act Helps American Workers and their Families.
Despite the need for reform, critics of EFCA continue to misinform the public about the bill and hide the serious shortcomings of current labor law. Democrats are committed to setting the record straight and passing this important legislation on behalf of American workers and their families.
MYTH: EFCA will prevent the use of secret-ballot elections.
REALITY: EFCA does not strip workers of their right to choose a secret-ballot election to decide whether to select — or not to select — a union representative. EFCA simply gives workers the additional option of selecting a union representative by majority sign-up.
The Employee Free Choice Act is nothing new it only reestablishes the Joy Silk Doctrine of 1949
History
In 1949, the NLRB’s Joy Silk Doctrine established that “an employer could lawfully refuse to bargain with a union claiming representative status through possession of authorization cards only if he had a ‘good faith doubt’ as to the union’s majority status.This policy was changed in 1966 with the ruling in Aaron Brothers, where “the Board made it clear that it had shifted the burden to the General Counsel to show bad faith and that an employer ‘will not be held to have violated his bargaining obligation… simply because he refuses to rely upon cards. ‘If passed, the proposed Employee Free Choice Act would return the NLRB policy to the Joy Silk Doctrine and allow employer challenges to card check elections only when illegal coercion or fraud is charged.
In 1969, Chief Justice Earl Warren delivered the majority opinion for the U.S. Supreme Court that upheld the use of card check. Warren stated, “Almost from the inception of the Act, then, it was recognized that a union did not have to be certified as the winner of a Board election to invoke a bargaining obligation; it could establish majority status by other means… by showing convincing support, for instance, by a union-called strike or strike vote, or, as here, by possession of cards signed by a majority of the employees authorizing the union to represent them for collective bargaining purposes.” The Supreme Court has consistently ruled in favor of card check, and Warren cited prior affirmations in NLRB v. Bradford Dyeing Assn., (1940); Franks Bros. Co. v. NLRB,[(1944); United Mine Workers v. Arkansas Flooring Co., (1956).
For More Information on EFCA please visit our website and blog
January 23rd, 2009 at 4:28 pmIsn’t this the proposed law that would eliminate the secret ballot when workers vote on whether or not they want to unionize? If so, how can anyone support it? How does a secret ballot help evil employers keep unions out? Obviously, it cannot. Why are unions pushing for this as their payoff for supporting Obama? They must believe that their organizers can better “influence” worker votes if the ballots aren’t secret.
The argument that the bill won’t eliminate the secret ballot is as specious an argument as I’ve ever heard. Sure, technically, the NLRB secret ballot process will still exist, but only as an anachronistic rellic. The real “vote” will occur when the union guys come around and put the arm on the workers, in front of all their peers, to agree to organize. That process will NOT be secret. And if the organizers get a majority, the NLRB secret ballot procedure becomes irrelevant.
Hard as it may be for many visitors to this site to believe, not all workers want a to be unionized. If one can bring himself or herself to acknowledge this, then one can understand why the secret ballot should be preserved as the method by which workers decide to join or not join a union.
January 23rd, 2009 at 7:17 pmRe: Bob Snyder comment
I’m afraid you have the entire process wrong Bob. Union organizers have no right to be allowed on the work site. Organizers can only approach workers off-site, usually at home where the worker is free to slam the door in their face. Conversely, in a “secret” ballot election process the boss is allowed to have mandatory closed door meetings, threaten to shut down the company and in many cases fire known union supporters. Economist Dean Baker estimates that 1 out of 4 workers are fired for supporting a union. Most supporters aren’t fired but routinely harassed by supervisors, have their hours cut back, give crap assignments etc. For me, the greatest aspect of the Free Choice Act is that it will impose treble damages on employers who break the law. As it stands now with the weak fines employers happily break the law since it’s cheaper than paying their employees a decent wage and providing healthcare.
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:10 pmBob, no, it doesn’t eliminate the secret ballot, it eliminates the restriction on freedom of association which used to say that an association can form with or without a secret ballot. What if the FCC came in and told you your favorite fan club could only form if all the members voted in a secret ballot election first? Would you stand for that?
January 23rd, 2009 at 11:54 pmI’d suggest making sure the legislation requires a secret ballot for approving the first contract. While union representation is a murky concept for most people, the contract is written in black-n-white, far less susceptible to management misinformation.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:13 amWithrow, a contract isn’t avaiable until the union has formed and negotiation has occured.
January 24th, 2009 at 11:21 amWithrow has a great idea: Require a secret ballot for the contract votes. If the rank and file have a problem with a provision, or think they might know why other members do, then they can speak up without fear of retribution. But let the unions form unimpeded by card check.
January 24th, 2009 at 2:16 pmThe plant that I work at recently got represented by the UFCW. The UFCW spent a year trying to negotiate a contract for the pay and benefits that we already had. They were gearing to settle for less than what we already had just to get that contract. The contract negotiations were secret and the details we got of those negotions were from rumors. The union itself only had 2 meetings in that year with the workforce and there were no details in what was being negotiated for. The meetings were just full of pro union rhetoric. A few of us headed off a campaign to have a recall vote of the Union and we were fortunatly sucessful. I thank a secret ballot for that result and I am appalled that Unions want to take that right away.
The UFCW shortly after that election made the news by standing up for the illegal immigrants that were being arrested at a couple of meat processing plants. Protecting illegal immigrants is going to help you get better wages?? I think not.
Union Membership is dropping, not because of business, but because the unions are a business of their own. They want a contract and don’t much care what it cost the employee, atleast that’s how the UFCW worked.
January 24th, 2009 at 2:52 pmWhy are there any government regulations concerning unions?
I thought the whole union process was collective bargaining with the threat of a strike.
It’s time people stood up to the technocratic elitist that think the world can be managed and ruled into perfect harmony.
January 24th, 2009 at 4:45 pmPlease click on my username to take action to stop Republican filibusters and force them to help enact the Employee Free Choice Act.
January 25th, 2009 at 4:16 pmIf the fact of only 8.8 million private sector workers being union members shows that American workers don’t want to be union members, then it must be that all American workers already have the option being union members, if they want to.
Right, Mitch?
What an idiot that guy is.
January 26th, 2009 at 2:28 pmSome of you think unions are so great. Consider the teachers union that has turned out thousands of high school graduates who can not read at the 5th grade level, who can not tell you the capitol of the state they live in, and on and on and on. That is what unions do for us.
January 27th, 2009 at 1:20 amLook at the auto and steel unions who have priced themselves out of existence and now want the taxpayer’s money to keep them afloat.
That is what unions do for us. Yep! Support the union! They don’t give a twit about the country or you.