Card Check Fight Goes On

It is hardly surprising that Union Bosses believe it would be wonderful for America to become a servant nation. What is astounding is that far too many in the mainstream media aren’t ripping "card check" apart as the political payoff it is. It is no longer even thinly cloaked as something ‘good for workers and good for jobs’.

Dying for more than 50 years has been an unpleasant and much-resisted experience for private sector union officials whose services aren’t wanted or needed and whose heavy-handed methods haven’t been relevant for more than half a century.

While dressing up "card check" with pleasant-sounding words like "democracy" and "fairness," the so-called Employee Free Choice Act is nothing but a power grab because union officials have been unable to grow their ranks. They turned to politics to buy what they couldn’t convince those they purport to represent to swallow.

Equally egregious is the fact that union officials are using fees forcibly extracted from workers to sell them down the river.

Enormous amounts of direct campaign contributions and currently reportable in-kind services have brought the D.C. union officials dangerously close to their #1 objective: to be in control of both employees and small to mid-sized businesses by changing the system from secret ballot elections to instant recognition.

The purposely-misnamed law has an all-too frequently overlooked objective: to put a deadline on contract negotiations and to force private sector businesses with as few as three employees to binding arbitration. Binding arbitration has never been foisted on private sector employers and employees.

Binding arbitration exists in several segments of public sector employment. That history has very mixed results.

Long before the November 2008 election of a new Presidential Administration and the election of sufficient members to give union officials what they thought was a sure "Card Check" Congress, their dream legislation has not been enacted.

For all generations of Americans, "card check" is a very bad public policy. It is a coffin nail for individual liberty, job creation, and economic stability.

This brings us to the present day.

Union officials are aware that their window of opportunity for "card check" is closing. Citizens from all walks of life now realize that "card check" should totally be rejected. As a result, union officials are ratcheting up the pressure on both congressional office holders and congressional office seekers. They wanted "card check" in January 2009, so it is delusional for anyone to assume that union officials are going to give up on this.

In spite of what union officials want us all to believe, the truth is that both union and non-union employees are terrified of "card check." The whole union movement is supposedly run by democratic procedures. It is how they elect their officers, ratify contracts, etc. Unionists across the country are unwilling to give that up so the pressure on the union officials exists internally and externally.

Individuals in the lower ranks know what we know: that a very small handful of union officials are making decisions that are not in anyone’s best interest except their own.

Increased coercion and dominion over hardworking, family oriented employees is the unmasked #1 objective of union officials. Our organization’s goal is to preserve and protect individual liberty and opportunity, which is a fundamental underpinning of our society.

"Card check" in any form must not be approved. Our organization is dedicated to that objective because it is the goal of the vast majority of our fellow citizens.

Susan Staub is president of Pennsylvanians for Right to Work, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to voluntary unionism. Pennsylvanians for Right to Work is funded solely by voluntary membership donations.