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Secret Ballot Watch

Eau d’EFCA

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 23, 2009 | Alexa Marrero ((202) 225-4527)
Sniff…what’s that odor? The “new” Employee Free Choice Act does not pass the smell test, two newspapers say.

Both the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and the Harrisonburg, Va., Daily News-Record decried the act’s stench of bad lawmaking in editorials – even after reports that one of its smelliest features, “card check,” would be removed.

Senators are being tight-lipped about this alleged compromise, so we don’t know how stinky the final bill will actually be. But the Tribune-Review explains why its nose is firmly pinched:  

“Gone from the Employee Free Choice Act – which isn't free and offers workers no choice – is the secret ballot-busting, filibuster-assured ‘card check’ provision. Yet Plan B takes this skunk of a bill and only gives it a quick dip in a tomato juice bath.

“Among proposals is a measure to slash the time for an organizing vote from a median 38 days to only five or 10 days after 30 percent of workers request a union. That puts enormous pressure on employers not only to fulfill all the legal obligations for an election but to present their case to employees – that is, assuming they would still be allowed to do so.”

Editorial, “EFCA Still Stinks,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 07.22.09 

Meanwhile, the Daily News-Record also caught a whiff of the new act and winced: 

“They’re merely taking a different tack to attain their dubious and job-killing ends. This stinkeroo has simply been re-packaged. Many of the bill’s noxious elements remain. …

“The bill’s advocates presumably deem any agreement to keep the secret ballot is sufficient to garner the support of 60 senators. Opponents should keep applying pressure. This measure is no horse of a different color, but rather a ‘Trojan horse’ not-so-neatly disguised to pursue similar ends.”

Editorial, “Re-Wrapping Card Check,” Harrisonburg, Va. Daily News-Record, 07.23.09 

No matter how many ways they present it, supporters of the Employee Free Choice Act can’t hide the fact that the measure kills jobs and forces government contracts, which weigh down our already struggling economy.  

The act not only fails the smell test, it fails the commonsense one as well.

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