Employee Not-Free Coercion Act: The Firestorm!

All right! Firestorm in cyberspace over the Employee Not-Free Coercion Act!

I've gotten a bunch of hits on my posts about the EFCA from all over the western hemisphere. One joker even pasted a voluminous blather of pro-Act talking points, obviously composed by organized labor, in his Anonymous comment. Following the advice of another Commenter, I'm deleting it to free up server space -- we don't want to crash Blogspot, after all.

Now, on to impartial, quantifiable facts.

Tomorrow, Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar of the non-partisan firm, LECG Consulting, will testify before the Senate H.E.L.P. Committee hearing on “Rebuilding Economic Security: Empowering Workers to Restore the Middle Class” about her findings in a study commissioned by The Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs. The Alliance, which is chaired by HR Policy Association, counts among its members the American Hotel and Lodging Association, the Associated Builders and Contractors, The International Council of Shopping Centers, the Real Estate Roundtable, the Retail Industry Leaders Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Dr. Layne-Farrar conducted an in-depth statistical analysis of the economic and social effects of card check and mandatory first-contract arbitration using Canada's experience as a control, and published her findings in An Empirical Assessment of the Employee Free Choice Act: The Economic Implications. The lady knows her stuff. Although I don't pretend actually to understand all that mathy regression stuff, it is apparent to me that her methodology is sound, and her conclusions are logical and telling. In a Memo announcing the study, The Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs, declares:

Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar finds that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is unlikely to
achieve proponents['] stated goal of improving overall social welfare because the
legislation will increase unemployment and reduce [...] job creation – two adverse
effects that America can ill afford, especially during this time of recession. She
conclusively states that greater unionization as a result of EFCA may provide some
with earnings growth, but it [would] likely decrease employment opportunities for others and
increase inflation for all Americans.

Specifically, her study conclusively states that increases in unionization by the card
check and mandatory binding arbitration methods employed under EFCA would lead
to a 1 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate for every 3 percentage
point increase in workers organized.

One commentator at PRNewswire projects that, extrapolating Dr. Layne-Farrar's conclusions, passage of EFCA could result in the loss of 600,000 jobs in 2010 alone.

An Abstract of Dr. Layne-Farrar's findings is available here.

Whew. This ain't your Mama's Norma Rae.