OPINION:
Some members of Congress make apocalyptic predictions that the Employee Free Choice Act is a “a threat to one of the fundamentals of democracy” and is tantamount to tyranny and socialism. The EFCA would permit employees to choose a union as their collective bargaining representative by presenting cards signed by a majority of workers at a workplace. The National Labor Relations Act, which the EFCA would amend, would still permit employees to hold an election to decide if they want to be represented by a union.
The opponents of the EFCA never say that a union already representing workers at a plant, warehouse or office can be decertified by the very process they oppose; if a majority of workers sign cards saying they no longer want the union, that’s it. The employer no longer has to recognize or bargain with the union, without a decertification election ever being held. The National Labor Relations Board and the courts have held that an employer may “unilaterally withdraw recognition” of a union based on a petition or decertification slips showing “that the union has lost the support of a majority of the employees.”
Why is choosing a union by card check undemocratic and un-American, but choosing not to have a union by the same process isn’t?
DAVID A. DRACHSLER
Alexandria
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