Lucia

de Vernai

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January 28, 2009

Executives Fear the Apocalypse: The Badly Needed Employee Free Choice Act

The trustworthy individuals who, in their capitalist spirit, cost taxpayers billions of dollars are back at the crystal ball. This time, they have predicted the end of the civilization. Apparently it’s a union bill, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, said that the bill, “is the demise of a civilization.”

This enlightened statement came during a conference call led by Marcus between representatives of Bank of America and AIG, who received $25 billion a few days prior. The EFCA allows employees to form a union through traditional voting or signed forms, and was disturbing enough to Marcus to keep him “off his 350-foot boat out in the Mediterranean.” Not the first thought most employees of his company have when bad news strikes, but that seems to be the point.

Wal-Mart worried about this sign of the apocalypse long before financial sector prophets did. The Wall Street Journal reported that the company held mandatory meetings for managers to discuss the threat of the bill passing over last summer. Now, with a Democratic president and not enough support for a filibuster, it’s no wonder that the potential costs union memberships may bring are making executives nervous.

Research has shown that union costs are a lot like tax cuts. They stimulate spending among lower-income consumers because of the wage increases. Sixty million U.S. workers say that they would join unions because union members earn 30 percent more and are over 60 percent more likely to have medical benefits than their non-unionized counterparts. So why aren’t there more unions? Employees are threatened with unlawful firing and Homeland Security or INS raids among them. The current employment numbers perpetrate the fears, making the legislation, the extra involvement from the government in the private sectors to help out the economy, the common man’s bailout.

Unlike executives toying with life savings, American workers are not waiting for a handout. Like throughout the decades, they are the backbone of the economy, more than willing and able to get themselves – and many others – back on their feet. EFCA shouldn’t just be passed, but it should be made effective as quickly as the billions of their hard-earned dollars got divided up between banks and mortgage companies.

Alas, since unions – not the lack of affordable basic health care or retirement funds, are going to be the end of us all – it’s time to prepare for the apocalypse. For Marcus and other business executives, this means putting their (or is it our?) money into the campaigns of Republican candidates who would be sympathetic to their cause. Democratic leaders are expected to bring up the issue fairly soon, and economists and policy makers predict this to be a beginning of a major conflict. The government always needs more accountability and permission, while the private sector is always ahead of the law, so there is no doubt that this is going to be long and painful.

At times like this, don’t you wish you could just get away from it all? Perhaps on a boat? In the Mediterranean?  

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