Saturday, August 08, 2009

Card Check Proposal : Total Government Control

Little wonder we are running scared - our own government wants us in chains. Who would have ever thought this could or would happen here. Wake up America, it's here!

Card Check's Dirty Little Secret - NewsMax -

The proposed Employee Free Choice Act's provision against secret ballots in union organization elections has created controversy and sparked stiff opposition from Republicans.
But even if the provision against secret ballots is removed from the so-called "card-check" bill, "the most insidious section of the bill will still remain," according to a former Department of Labor official.

That section would allow the government to step in when two sides in a labor dispute can't come to an agreement, and write a contract that both sides would have to accept, explained F. Vincent Vernuccio, a former special assistant to the assistant secretary for administration and management at the Department of Labor under President George W. Bush.

In an Op-Ed piece in The Washington Examiner, Vernuccio writes: "Card check calls the process 'arbitration,' but the procedure described in the bill is known as compulsory binding interest arbitration, which is quite different."

In that process, businesses and workers would have 120 days to negotiate and reach an agreement. Then one party could force the other into compulsory binding interest arbitration.
"This allows the government to write a contract from scratch, going much further than the traditional role of an arbitrator interpreting existing terms," said Vernuccio.
"Unlike today where the workers can vote on an agreement, card check would give a union representative the power to present the union's position to the arbitrator. The arbitrator would then create the contract, essentially erasing the worker from the final decision."

The arbitrator would have say over pay, work schedules, safety, health benefits, and vacations and could possibly force workers into a union's under-funded pension plan, according to Vernuccio, editor of efcaupdate.org.

The arbitration will be run by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, headed by a political appointee. Thus politics could enter the arbitrator's decision, Vernuccio points out, adding, "The arbitration section of card check rewards the worst instincts of government, to arbitrarily impose its will on private businesses."

The Employee Free Choice Act of 2009 was passed by the House in 2007 but never brought to a vote in the Senate because of a threatened Republican-led filibuster.

The act provides measures that would eliminate an employer's ability to require a secret ballot if the employees attempt to gain union representation. Instead, a union could be certified if 50 percent plus one of those working at a particular site sign cards asking for a union, creating a "card-check" system.

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