Secret Ballot Watch

The card check method for requiring workers to publicly declare support for forming a union has already proven unpopular with the American people and with opinion leaders around the country. Now a top legal scholar has weighed in, publishing a detailed analysis that debunks the false claims made by card check supporters and makes a compelling case that enactment of the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act would harm individual businesses and their workers, and the U.S. economy as a whole.

Richard A. Epstein, a legal scholar with The University of Chicago Law School, The Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and New York University Law School, has written The Case Against the Employee Free Choice Act, a paper soon to be published by the Hoover Press. He outlines some of the arguments against card check in an opinion piece published today on Forbes.com. Among his findings— 

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 “EFCA’s first mistake is to adopt a card-check system that allows a union to sidestep at will any secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. Today, that election takes place only after a highly regulated political campaign in which both the employer and dissident workers have their say about the proposed union. …

“The harm from the deeply unpopular card check is compounded by an untested and convoluted process of compulsory interest arbitration that kicks in only 10 days after the union is certified. In those negotiations, the union has the huge advantage of surprise.

“If the parties fail to reach an agreement after 90 days of private negotiation, followed by 30 days with a mediator, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in the Department of Labor will, under rules yet to be determined, issue a decree that binds both sides for two years, politely described as a ‘first contract’ period. Contract has nothing to do with it. Worker ratification is not required for the decree to be binding, and the employer cannot challenge the decree’s terms in any court. …”

Epstein, “Obama's Welcome Silence On The Employee Free Choice Act,” Forbes.com, 02.10.09  

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With some 74 percent of voters opposed to card check and the plan itself drawing legal and economic criticism, it’s a wonder anyone is still fighting to strip workers of the right to a secret ballot. 

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