Exposing EFCA

Our Private Ballot
The Employee "Free Choice" Act takes away a worker's fundamental right to a private ballot in union organizing elections. Big union bosses would bypass free and fair union elections supervised by the National Labor Relations Board for a "card check" system where they could intimidate and coerce workers to sign cards authorizing the formation of a union. Under this bill, once the union has obtained a mere majority of workers signing authorization cards, a union is immediately recognized with no further discussion or debate and no secret ballot election. In contrast to a private ballot election, a card check system allows the union and employer alike to see where you stood.

The private ballot is the cornerstone of American democracy. Only when a vote is private -- free of the intimidation or coercion that open public "voting" would invite -- can the people's voice truly be heard.

The Employee "Free" Choice Act would rip apart a sacred American right in favor of an unfair and coercive card check process. That's why EFCA should really be called the Employee Forced Choice Act.


Our Workplaces
The danger of the Employee Forced Choice Act extends well beyond a denial of workers' democratic rights. EFCA would dramatically change the nature of the American workplace, inserting Washington bureaucrats into the most basic decisions about your job or your business. If an employer and a union don't reach a contract agreement within 90 days, a Federal "arbitrator" can step in to unilaterally impose contract terms -- without a full vote of the workforce that is currently required in union contract negotiations. That's right: EFCA not only ends automatic elections on whether to form a union, but it drastically undermines your right to vote on contracts too.

EFCA would create a culture of cynicism and mistrust in American workplaces -- when surveys show that over 74% of workers not in unions are satisfied with workplace relations. Workers could see unions formed in the dark of night and take over control of their workplace without their knowledge. Stealth union campaigns could target workers again and again to sign cards in their homes at night or wherever a union could track them down. And at the end of it, Federal bureaucrats could be given absolute control to impose unfair contracts dictating how workers do their jobs.

Our Economy
With an economy in crisis, now is not the time to institute radical change on the American workforce that would reduce competitiveness and flexibility in the workplace and force already strapped middle class families to pony up even more in forced union dues.

Big Labor bosses are pushing EFCA in order to drive up their membership numbers and get more money into their coffers. They are not content to compete on a level playing field where workers get to vote in private because they simply don’t like the current results in union elections where workers freely choose. They essentially want a big labor bailout by forcing more workers into unions and generating more union dues. Already, union bosses are lining up for taxpayer bailout money for underfunded pension funds for their rank-and-file, while labor bosses make sure their own pension funds are fully funded. Passing EFCA would put millions more workers into this system of broken promises and failure, further dragging down an already fragile economy.