Issues

Government dictating your job terms latest EFCA threat

News reports have indicated that Congressional supporters of the deceptively titled Employee Free Choice Act are dropping the provision that would effectively eliminate the private ballot for union organizing.

Considerable opposition and outrage over the attempt to diminish the rights of workers to make the decision on unionization in private and free of harassment and intimidation from employers, coworkers and union bosses appears to be making a difference!

While this is good news for the protection of worker freedoms, the fight is far from over.

The biggest threat to job creation and retention remains in play - government binding arbitration.

Binding arbitration, in which a government bureaucrat could dictate employment terms for workers and employers, is a job killer.

According to one recent study, mandatory arbitration would result in a 1 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate in the year following enactment.

"The costs (of EFCA) should be carefully weighed against any purported benefits of passing the act, all of which appears to benefit some groups at the expense of others," concluded Dr. Layne-Farrar, a noted economist who conducted the study. "There is no coherent theoretical argument that explains how the higher costs, greater legal uncertainty, and expanded government intervention entailed in EFCA would improve overall social welfare."

Philip A. Miscimarra of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP, is counsel to the Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs, the group that funded the study. He added, "EFCA would help achieve organized labor's goal of increasing dues-paying members at the cost to the U.S. economy and, ironically, jobs. This research shows EFCA would promote a surge in job losses and stifled job creation. These are terrible problems at any time, but devastating in today's economic climate."

Under EFCA, if both sides are unable to meet a contract agreement within a given time frame, a government bureaucrat would decide the terms on the initial contract. Workers would have no say, and like their employer, would be bound by the arbitrator's decision for two years! No two contract negotiations are the same, but EFCA would force a federal arbitrator's decision on both sides in an unfair and uniform way.

In announcing his opposition to EFCA, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter said, "The problems of the recession make this a particularly bad time to enact Employee Free Choice legislation. Employers understandably complain that adding a burden would result in further job losses.