Secret Ballot Watch

There are plenty of reasons not to enact the job killing, privacy destroying Employee Free Choice Act, but this morning, the U.S. Department of Labor gave us 247,000 more.

Those reasons? The 247,000 Americans who lost their jobs in the month of July, bringing the job loss totals since the recession began to 6.7 million and the total number of Americans out of work to 14.5 million.

No matter how you read the latest jobs report, looking at the facts, one thing is obvious: Job losses are continuing to mount.

A clear sign that the so-called stimulus package has failed to provide the jobs that were promised? You bet.

An overwhelming repudiation of the anti-worker card check plan? Without a doubt.

Again, just look at the facts. Card check was not designed to create jobs or speed economic recovery. It’s all about consolidating power for a special interest group whose influence has waned in a changing economy.

Yet the legislation’s consequences for workers and job-seekers would be profound. Workers who have jobs would lose their right to privacy in workplace organizing elections, and their right to have a say in contract negotiations that could be hijacked by government bureaucrats. 

But that’s nothing compared to the workers who stand to lose their jobs because of the bill’s likely consequences for job creation and American competitiveness.

A report issued earlier this year projects that the so-called Employee Free Choice Act would destroy existing jobs and hamper the creation of new ones at a time when our economy needs them most. The report, from Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the non-partisan firm LECG Consulting, uses Canada’s economic experiences to predict the impact of card check legislation on the American economy. Canada has seen similar shifts in union certification and arbitration policies as those proposed in the card check plan, providing a glimpse into the economic future if the disastrous card check plan was ever to become law—

---

i>“[T]he unintended consequences of passing EFCA are likely to be significant. Increased unemployment and reduced labor supply are very high prices to pay during any time, but especially during a recession.”

Layne-Farrar, “An Empirical Assessment of the Employee Free Choice Act: The Economic Implications,” March 2009

---

Each monthly report of lost jobs and struggling American families is a reminder that EFCA must never take effect. Its consequences for workers and our economy are something America simply cannot afford.

# # #