Herman

Cain

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December 15, 2008

No Holiday Cheer, Just ‘Card Check’ Fear

This is supposed to be the time of year when writers come up with happy holiday articles. Many writers will succeed, but I did not.

I cannot stop thinking about what might happen after the holidays. President-elect Obama will be sworn in, and we will have a new Congress with a larger majority of Democrats in both chambers of Congress.

That fact in itself is not my nightmare. Their fast track liberal and pro-union agenda is my nightmare. My November 24, 2008 column warned you of the falsely named “Fairness Doctrine” and the “Employee Free Choice Act”.

But I discovered last week that the “Employee Free Choice Act” is worse than most people know. It not only eliminates the secret ballot of employees to determine if a vote to unionize should be held at their place of employment, it eliminates a vote altogether.

The existing “check card” authorizes holding a vote if 30 percent of the workers say yes. The new “check card” legislation authorizes a union with 50 percent plus 1 vote. Remember, no secret ballot.

Very clever, misleading and dishonest!

With the current process, many employees would sign the “card check” to get the union representatives out of their hair, and sometimes literally out of their homes. With the secret ballot, they could then vote no to unionizing.

By eliminating the second step in the process, the union representatives will get a bigger bang for their intimidation buck. As a result, they hope to increase the size of their union membership through intimidation.

Over the last 20 years, the number of union workers in this country has gone from 38 percent to 8 percent of the workforce. Sen. Chuck Schumer and other liberals attribute that decline to too much power by employers.

Employers have the power to create jobs and keep employees happy, but liberals can’t stand happy employees.

During this same week of “Employee Free Choice Act” enlightenment, I attended two corporate Board meetings with some of my CEO peers. I did not even have to raise the subject, but it came up in the course of conversation.

So I asked them what they thought the impact on business in America would be if the “Employee Free Choice Act” passed in Congress.

Unanimously, they predicted that the proposed legislation would be the end to manufacturing and production in the United States of America.

Now, that’s a nightmare!

When I asked why – as if I did not already know the answer – they said it was because they would never build another plant in the USA. Total unionization in America is not competitive with the rest of the world.

The proposed “Employee Free Choice Act” gives excessive opportunity to the unions to intimidate. And it eliminates the opportunity for the employer to present the pros and cons of unionization after the union representatives show up.

So employers, get proactive if you are not already and then talk to your people about the pros and cons of “to unionize or not”.

One of those cons is to shut down the business if they can not accept the union demands, and the workers do not even get a chance to vote on those demands.

No secret ballot and no vote.

That’s my holiday fear.

I will try to come up with some happy holiday cheer next week.

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