Letter Urges Senate to Oppose EFCA
With the threat of the Employee Free Choice Act looming, AWF sent the following letter to the U.S. Senate urging them to oppose EFCA:
On behalf of the Alliance for Worker Freedom (AWF), business owners, and American employees and their families, I am writing to alert you to the dangers posed by the “Employee Free Choice Act” (EFCA). If this bill is passed, this law will compromise your constituents’ freedoms and place their safety and the safety of their children and families in jeopardy by making them vulnerable to organized labor threats and union-thug intimidation.
The EFCA will eliminate a worker’s right to a federally-supervised private ballot election. Instead, secret ballots will be replaced by a kind of open-air petition known as a “card check.” Under this system, workers would lose their right to privacy. Employers, union organizers, and co-workers would all know if your constituents vote for or against unionization.
Too often, unions have resorted to petition-like “card check” campaigns which take the decision on union representation from the private voting booth to the front porch of workers. Reports have indicated that the public signing (or not) of these petitions leads to violence, bribery, and/or distorting the truth to workers. This bill, if passed, will encourage similar abuses resulting from these “card check” petitions.
Besides risky “card check” schemes, the EFCA presents other excessive demands from Big Labor. Prominent among these is its requirement for mandatory, binding arbitration in the event that unions refuse to continue with contract negotiations. Binding arbitration would be imposed on both the employer and the collective bargaining unit (the workers), regardless if they support the union or not. Decisions of federal arbitration boards in these cases would be binding upon both parties for two years.
In closing, I wish to personally inform you that my staff and I are personally working to pass anti-EFCA resolutions in each state Congressional body. Additionally, this vote will be scored in our Congressional ratings and by voting for the “Employee Free Choice Act, it will negatively affect your contention for the Guardian of Worker Freedom Award.
Undoubtedly, however, the 111th Congress will face many more votes that present choices between aligning yourself with or against workers. AWF encourages you to always keep worker-freedom at the forefront of your mind when voting on future legislation.
Brian Johnson, AWF Executive Director
