Sunday, November 23, 2008 | Opinion, Politics
SP Saxby versus Obama and the unions

President-elect Barack Obama has vowed that “Card Check” will be the law of the land

A closed plant in Ohio that belonged to auto parts maker Delphi until it declared bankruptcy in 2005.
J.D. Pooley/Getty Images

By Stephanie Ramage

President-elect Barack Obama, who co-sponsored the misleadingly titled Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate in 2007, has vowed that the measure, called “Card Check,” will be the law of the land once he’s in office.

Given the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, if Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss loses Georgia’s runoff election on Dec. 2, Card Check probably will become law—and that would be terrible news for Americans who want to keep their jobs. 

Card Check would do away with the present secret ballot process used by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) when employees vote on whether to unionize their companies. It would also allow union negotiators to skip bargaining for a first contract. Instead, if employers don’t want to bow to union requirements, the federal government could impose the union’s conditions for up to two years without employees’ approval. Card Check isn’t just about unions; it’s also about federal control of business.

The danger of Card Check is twofold: First, in some situations, only the anonymity of the NLRB process has kept anti-union employees safe from abusive treatment by their pro-union co-workers. Under Card Check, employees who don’t want to unionize would be forced to reveal their vote, which would expose them to harassment by pro-union workers.

On the other hand, if attempts at unionization fail, Card Check would expose pro-union workers to similar treatment by employers—giving pro-union workers an added incentive to pressure their co-workers into unionizing. Even most union workers don’t want Card Check. A January 2007 poll by McLaughlin and Associates showed that 80 percent of union households oppose it. A 2004 Zogby International survey of union workers found that 71 percent agreed that the current private ballot process is fair.

Second, Card Check would inflate the cost of American goods and services, further crippling the ability of American companies to compete in the global market.

At present, even without Card Check, employees can unionize, but they have to go through a process of negotiation mediated by the NLRB. Unions complain that the process costs them too much time and money, and yet 60 percent of attempts to unionize under the present NLRB guidelines are successful. Why isn’t that enough?

Unions are losing members, and membership dues, as more jobs get shipped overseas or companies fold due to global competition. The unions want to force more of the Americans who are still employed to join unions to make up for lost money and clout.

Obviously, the unions’ concern is for themselves, not the well-being of American workers. The same is true for Democrats, who value repaying campaign favors over the good of American employees. Democrats rely heavily on union votes, particularly in the “Rust Belt,” parts of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

The Rust Belt got its name in the 1980s, during the decline of the American steel and auto manufacturing industries. As foreign manufacturers like Toyota became major players in the world market, jobs at American auto plants were cut. Union labor was too expensive and not innovative enough to compete. Many of those jobs and their support industries moved South, where unions were far less powerful. The metro Atlanta area owes a substantial chunk of its population to the exodus of jobs from the unionized North. The “Rust Belt” was named for the factories left to rust after their owners closed or moved South.

There is no question that unionization in the first half of the last century brought about much-needed changes in the workplace. At that time, employees’ concerns included being forced to work 15-hour days for too little pay in unsafe conditions. Today, labor laws allow employees to file complaints about such concerns with federal agencies like OSHA. In today's world market, going on strike is more likely to result in businesses shutting down than in higher wages. American workers are not as concerned about how many hours they work as they are about having jobs at all. 

Chambliss isn’t perfect, but he may be all that stands between millions of American workers and the unemployment line. SP