Covering the squeeze Big Labor is putting on Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) over the Orwellian Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)the San Diego Union Tribune’s John Marelius wrote on June 21:

Under the Employee Free Choice Act, a union bargaining unit would be certified by the National Labor Relations Board any time 50 percent of the workers signed cards.

…
Under the present system, over which employers have much more control, 30 percent of the employees in a workplace can sign cards requesting a secret-ballot union election. If a majority votes for the union, the NLRB certifies it.

First a nit pick: EFCA requires 50% plus one workers to sign a cards before a union is certified. But that’s just a minor quibble. More problematic is Marelius’ assertion that “employers have much more control” over the union election process. That is just not true:

• Unions control election timing, so workers do not vote until union support peaks.
• The law severely restricts employer speech while allowing unions to say almost anything they want. Employers may not promise to improve working conditions if workers vote down the union. The union may promise anything it wants, even if it knows it cannot keep those promises.
• Unions may not campaign while workers are on company property and on company time. However the company must give unions the addresses of every worker and unions can visit workers at their homes. Employers are legally prohibited from visiting workers homes to campaign.

Unions use that last advantage to harass and intimate workers. Just ask Faith Jetter, a housekeeper who filed a court declaration attesting to harassment by the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union. With all these advantages it is no wonder that unions won 3 out of 5 organizing elections in 2008.

Marelius’ article focuses on the struggle faced by Senator Feinstein in deciding her position on this piece of legislation, but readers also deserve to know what’s at stake.