The good folks over at EmployerReport.com have an excellent post today describing how the Employee Free Choice Act will devastate the non-union construction industry. He hints at how detrimental this would also be to the U.S. economy in general:
“Unionized construction work is largely uncompetitive. In fact, according to one recent study[1], the costs of building “union-only” can increase the costs by as much as 35%. As a result gross cost of having a union on a jobsite, as well as the separation of union vs. union-free in the industry, it is the union trades that have been on the losing end of the competitive marketplace, as union-free work has grown significantly in the last three decades. In fact, today, 86% of all construction- industry workers in the United States are union-free….
“Unfortunately, under EFCA, a union-free construction company that becomes unionized under card-check will immediately be put into economic peril. The reason is the nature of the construction industry itself as most construction jobs are short in duration. Immediately upon unionization, the former union-free construction company will be unable to bid on new work as it will be unable to accurately predict its labor costs, since the company is either still negotiating or waiting for an arbitrator to decide its labor costs.”
The entire article is a bit lengthy, but if you would like to see an example how the so-called Employee Free Choice Act will impact the American work force and the U.S. economy, you should read it in its entirety.
