Is the Employee ‘Free Choice’ Act Really Free?: It is time for for the business community to face the challenge ahead

Member Group : PA Right to Work

"The inconveniences of too little government are far less harmful than the inconveniences of too much."… Thomas Jefferson

With the potential for the most radical shift in Labor law in decades, it comes as no surprise that Big Labor is spending record funds estimated at over $1 billion in mostly compulsory dues—on the [Democratic] 2008 elections." (Doug Stafford, the Eureka Reporter Online, 9/01/08)

The 10 top biggest money givers in American politics since 1989 (compiled by the Center for responsive Politics) shows which party each giver favored: 6 of the top 10 are labor unions, giving 92%-98% of their campaign money to Democrats, leaving the scraps going to Republicans. The remaining four givers included nonunion affiliated AT&T, Inc., Realtor( NAR), American Association for Justice, and Goldman Sachs, (Human Review Online, 8/26/08)

Major unions chronicled included county and municipal employees (AFSCME), electrical workers (IBEW), teachers (NEA), laborers union (LU), service international employees (SEIU), and carpenters and joiners (C&JU).
It should be no surprise, then, that all indications suggest Big Labor is again making a billion-dollar bet on our 2008 fall elections to elect not only their Presidential candidate- Senator Barack Obama, but every available member of the Democratic Party to join him in Congress.

Presidential-nominee Obama is not only an enthusiastic supporter of the ill-named "Employee Free Choice Act" – their "card-check" scheme to take away the private vote of workers to organize a union in their place of work—but in fact, he "introduced the so-called Patriot Employer Act, which offers tax advantages to those companies agreeing to the so-called ‘neutrality’ and use of card check (not yet mandated)." (Ibid)

But there is more!

Union lobbyists and their chosen nominee are pushing for an unfunded mandate that would force states and cities to bargain with union bosses as the monopoly bargaining agent of public safety personnel, and the federal government would take over the labor relations of states that refuse to comply… In the last 12 years, 16 state legislatures have rejected legislation that would force police, firefighters and paramedics into union collectives and force many to pay dues or fees to unions as a condition of employment.
In contrast, Presidential candidate Senator John McCain voted against the "Card Check" Act. This year’s Republican National Convention approved a party platform calling for a "creative and flexible workforce," and a "modernization" of federal labor laws, stating, "Republicans believe that the employer-employee relationship of the future will be built upon employee empowerment and workplace flexibility…"

"While affirming the rights of workers to participate in labor organizations and bargain collectively and the rights of states to enact Right to Work laws," the platform states "we will conscientiously enforce federal law requiring financial reporting and transparency by labor unions. We advocate paycheck protection laws to guard the integrity of the political process and the security of workers’ earnings.

Furthermore, decrying the Democrat’s recent attempt to enact the card-check scheme (H.R. 800, S. 1041)… the GOP platform states, "denying workers a secret ballot would be an assault on a fundamental principle of labor law, as well as on the dignity and honor of the U.S. workforce." DLR Online, 172, 9/05/08, BNA, Inc., 2008)

Samuel Gompers, Founder of the American Federation of Labor and heralded by the nations’ unionists and nonunion workers across the country for decades, clearly is no longer cherished or honored by today’s union boss actions or demands. His initial dream has been abandoned: "I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty—the principles of voluntarism. No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion."

Whatever the outcome of this election, we will face a tremendous assault on our American freedom with the looming possibility of "Card Check "(H.R. 800, S. 1041) becoming law. While federal unions have been dying, with over 80% of the population no longer feeling the need for their existence, they have now turned to buying into politics what they can’t earn in the hearts of American workers.

Our forefathers built this nation on the principle that the job of government is to protect our freedom. Let us honor them in our work, in our laws, and in our lives. Let us work to return "human liberty—the principles of voluntarism—to every individual seeking freedom from compulsion. The freedom that is guaranteed by Right to Work laws should be our states’ and our nation’s promise.

Pennsylvania should be in the forefront!

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Contact Mrs. Staub at [email protected] for more information or to arrange a speaking engagement for your group or organization. Or visit their website at www.PARightToWork.org.

Pennsylvanians for Right to Work is not affiliated with any other Right to Work organization.