Our friends at LaborPains.org reframed the fight over the Employee Free Choice Act quite well: EFCA is now a proxy label for an ongoing fight between the interests of Big Labor and U.S. businesses. It is highly unlikely that the original EFCA will ever see the light of day as an intact piece of legislation, or that it will ever even move forward as such. That hasn’t stopped Big Labor leadership or their political puppets (like VP Biden) from pushing it, nor the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from fighting against it. Both sides now seem to use “EFCA” as shorthand for aggressive labor law change, whether legislative or regulatory. Some still suggest that U.S. business leadership is quite in the dark about the dangers posed by even incremental changes to labor law. As James V. Meath put it,
“In short, they [the unions] don’t need the EFCA, they just need minimal change in a system that actually has worked for the past 60 years and they will turn the tables in their favor. Increases in the number of union-organized employees in this country will occur.”
David Nye, professor of Management at Athens State University in Alabama, shines a new light on the potential ramifications one of the most grievous objectives of Big Labor:
EFCA would force the parties to submit to federal mediation if they cannot reach agreement in 90 days. If that fails, government appointed arbitrators would dictate the new labor contract.
Knowing that the purpose of EFCA is to reward unions for supporting the political party to which they have been joined at the hip pocket for 80 years, these arbitrators will not be confused about their marching orders: give the unions what they want.
Editorialist Doris O’Brien is also afraid that such radical amendment of current labor law would drastically enhance the intrusion of government into the affairs of American businesses:
At the time of the passage of the New Deal National Labor Relations Act, the Supreme Court said that its purpose was to ensure that business and labor could “work together to establish mutually satisfactory conditions,” without the intrusion of government. Under the pending EFCA legislation, however, cooperation between labor and management would cave in anticipation of shifting their own responsibilities onto bureaucratic shoulders. The proposed arrangement would risk fostering a hostile company environment, as more power gets concentrated in the hands of those outside the workplace. When we increase government clout, we diminish our own.
States seem to see the handwriting on the wall. Insider sources are saying that Becker and Pearce will received recess appointments, and remarks from DOL head Solis seem to confirm this outcome. South Carolina and South Dakota are both promoting ballot initiatives to at least protect the secret ballot election process for union elections. The recent data about the decline of unions would lead one to wonder how Big Labor can still create such a ruckus in the policy sphere. Economist Raymond J. Keating sums it up well,
Labor unions stand out as a classic example of a concentrated, special interest willing to spend big dollars to advance its agenda, even though that agenda will wind up doing far more harm than good for consumers, businesses, the economy and job creation. For example, the Employee Free Choice Act would raise costs and diminish competitiveness for U.S. businesses. And a tax on securities transactions would only serve to raise the costs of investment, and divert financial industry business to other nations.
Unfortunately, the resources that labor union leaders are willing to invest in the political process and the number of politicians willing to ignore economic reality – including the current White House and congressional leaders – means that the influence of labor unions on public policy will continue to far outstrip their ever-shrinking role in the private sector economy.
