Saturday, March 7, 2009

Employee Not-Free Coercion Act, Part Deux

I got one response from the four Senators I emailed on Thursday -- a stock reply from Mark Pryor explaining to me how a business can come to be unionized. You know -- that stuff I taught in a state university at both undergraduate and graduate levels for 9 years. At least he replied.

After visiting with Pepper about the Bill last night, I decided to contact the Senators again about the Bill's mandatory arbitration provision -- it's probably worse than the card check measure. Here's what the Staffers will read:

Re: The Employee Free Choice Act

As a post-script to my email of March 5 expressing concern about this Bill's brutal affront to voting privacy, I would like to voice another concern.

The provision in the Bill that would require mandatory arbitration of employment contracts is about as anti-business as it can get, especially in a Right to Work state.

After a mere 60 days of negotiations, significant business decisions about the employment relationship would be removed from the hands of interested parties and placed in those of a disinterested third party. The arbitrator's decision would be binding for TWO YEARS. This is bad for the economy; this is bad for economic development -- the retention of old, and attraction of new, business enterprises -- in Louisiana. This is simply bad law in a purportedly free society.

Cooler heads prevail when given adequate time to consider a subject thoroughly, and better decisions for all stakeholders are reached as a consequence. Business leaders (and many Union leaders, I wager) know this to be true. Congress would do well to take a lesson from them.

Once again, I implore you to vote against this very, very bad Bill.

I wonder what kind of "schooling" I can expect in response to this communication. I hope it's not the bend-over-and-cough variety.

6 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Apparently I rattled someone's cage at the AFL-CIO.

    The writing style variance between the introduction and the alleged (read, "twisted") "Facts and Fictions," etc., clearly show that the Comment's Anonymous author simply pasted Union/ultra-liberal academia propaganda in an effort to shore up support for the abominable Bill. The Comment's author also ignored over the mandatory arbitration provision. Hmmm. This Comment should've been made to the previous Post.

    The Bill still stinks.

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  3. The idea that the companies have all the power in the organizing process is just wrong. Unfortunately, coercion by union organizers is not at all unknown. When the Teamsters targeted Overnite Transportation for organizing efforts in the mid-90s, scores of Overnite trucks were shot into while driving on the highways.

    Fortunately, only one driver was hit, so they were probably not shooting to kill. But they were definitely shooting to intimidate.

    Any bill that has as its key provision the ability to force a major change without a secret ballot is, no matter how you try to dress it up, undemocratic and subject to abuse by thugs.

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  4. I'm surprised you didn't just delete the anonymous comment, Moogie. It's just such an obvious cut 'n' paste exercise... I didn't bother to read the voluminous boilerplate.

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  5. It's done, Buck. And I'll do so in the future. I'm still learning blog "etiquette," and don't want to be rude, betraying my Southern roots!

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  6. Oh, I wouldn't have deleted it. The best antidote for stupid speech is smart speech. Let them have their say -- it just shows how stupid they are.

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