Last month I discussed the hypocritical fact that unions oppose elections only when they aren’t the employer. Since then I remembered another case where unions like to force the “unfair” secret ballot election process on employees – decertification cases.
Ironically, the Employee Free Choice Act (which is slated to fly through the House of representatives this week) only outlaws secret ballot elections for certification elections. Decertification cases – where members frustrated with their union try to rid themselves of their bargaining representative – remain covered by the “unfair” secret ballot election process.
Today union members who are disappointed with their bargaining representative are forced to go through the cumbersome process of filing a petition with the NLRB (most of the time even this can only occur during one 30-day window every 3 years) and seeking an election. After the petition is filed employees are subject to a whole host of legal maneuvers, meetings and high pressure from their union to vote against decertification. Some members are even threatened with discipline, fines or even expulsion from the union for “conduct unbecoming” of a good union member.
It is hard to see how this “unjust” secret ballot election system can stand when a much simpler card-check process could be used in its place. Unions deserve much of the credit for bringing these problems with secret ballot elections to light. Now it is time for them to step up and throw their support behind an amendment to the EFCA that makes clear how opposed they are to these secret ballot elections.
I know this must just be an oversight by unions and their Democrat friends in the House. Now that this oversight has been brought to light, I am hoping that the EFCA is amended to make secret ballot elections unnecessary in decertification cases where signatures are collected by the majority of employees in a bargaining unit. The same rule should also apply in right to work states where a majority of employees covered by a union contract choose not to belong to the union.
I hope it is obvious that my proposal here is only partially serious (although if this ridiculous law does eventually pass it definitely should include the same rules for decertifications as it does for certifications). But let me pull my tongue out of my cheek for a moment to make a more important point.
Could the way unions are selected (or rejected) be improved? I have no doubt that it could. However, the proposals should not be designed to simply eliminate one group from the discussion. If the idea is that all companies should be unionized then why bother with all the window-dressing about the process and just pass a law requiring all companies to have a union?
“But that would be un-American,” you say? Precisely my point.
The underlying presumption of the EFCA – and the argument trumpeted non-stop by its supporters recently – is that the current election process is unfair. The evidence used is that unions are losing a lot of elections (and therefore a lot of members). If the process were more “fair,” the argument goes, then all these employees who really want a union would be able to get one.
The problem with this reasoning is that it runs exactly counter to the facts. The sad truth (sad if you are a union, that is) is that unions actually win a higher percentage of elections today than they have in decades (the win percentage for all unions was 61% in 2006, with many unions winning over 70% of the time). Even when companies use consultants and attorneys, the union win rates are up. I know – we keep track of the win rates and have for years.
The real problem unions have is that fewer and fewer people are interested in their message. Unions will blame anti-union employers, the law, the media and just about anyone but themselves for this problem. Yet the truth is that when employees are given a chance to hear both sides of the union story they overwhelmingly decide that unions just aren’t what they’re cracked up to be. And that is the biggest problem for unions.
So the EFCA is just another finger in the dike for unions. Even if it is passed and signed into law (which obviously won’t happen while the current administration is running the show) I doubt unions will see much success in organizing. That is why I think unions should sponsor the ENCA (Employee No Choice Act) which simply says that every company must have a union once it hires its second employee. There is plenty of room on the bandwagon right now, but don’t wait too long because that is where we are headed.
