Card Check Name Change : Employee Free Choice Act

Changing the name of a pig won't change the pig.

More great stuff from the Heritage Foundation - New government regulations that will crush our economy will be forced down our throats and result in huge new costs for everything. And of course, more loss of personal freedoms. But then this is what the liberal Democrats have wanted along.

Who are these people? Really, they can't be Americans and do this to our country, right?

Lawmakers should practice what they preach

Many members of Congress are urging passage of the RESPECT Act and the Employee Free Choice Act. These misnamed proposals would impose greater restrictions on the private sector by pushing workers to join labor unions.

The RESPECT Act would stifle private enterprise by reviving strict hierarchical management divisions.

EFCA would abolish secret-ballot elections for union formation, allowing Big Labor to intimidate workers into joining. And the government would assume the authority to dictate contracts and business decisions at firms with newly formed unions.
» Read The Heritage Foundations's research on these harmful proposals

Heritage experts James Sherk and Ryan O'Donnell point out Congress' hypocrisy in supporting these ideas. Lawmakers "argue that unions benefit workers and the economy," they write. "Yet Congress' own employees do not have the right to form a union -- making Congress exempt from the consequences of the very union laws it might pass."

Union membership has sharply declined over the last 25 years -- less than eight percent of private sector workers belong to unions today. This is because of advancements in employment laws and an increased focus on individual and specialized skills.

Non-union workers are evaluated on the basis of individual merit and performance. "Employees can get ahead by working hard." Union members' pay, however, is dictated through strict, one-size-fits-all contracts. There is little incentive to work hard or to outperform peers, which ultimately hinders productivity.

Yet Congress continues to claim that unionization does not burden the private sector. If this is true, then they should apply these labor laws to their own staffs. "Congress should stop forcing private-sector employers to swallow a pill that Congress refuses to swallow itself," write Sherk and O'Donnell.