Union Infighting Exposes Union Hypocrisy and Reasons Why Employee Free Choice Act Should Be Opposed

April 21, 2008, West Caldwell, NJ—For several years, Big Labor has spent millions of dollars of their members’ dues money waging an offensive and often misleading PR war. Union efforts are being made in order to lure politicians into supporting a draconian bill entitled the Employee Free Choice Act. It is estimated that labor union spending on the November elections may exceed $1 billion in order to target and unionize millions of America’s union-free workers through this Orwellian law.

Yet, it is a very public fight between unions that has taken place over the last two months, leading to allegations of union-led violence at a union conference on Saturday, April 12th, that demonstrates exactly why the Employee Free Choice Act should be opposed, says EmployerReport.com Editor and Chief Blogger Peter A. List, a noted labor relations consultant.

List is referring to the current clash going on right now between the Service Employees International Union, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, an offshoot of the California Nurses Association (an AFL-CIO affiliate), and the AFL-CIO. All three have been locked in a heated battle over which union gets representational and monetary control over the nation’s registered nurses.

This inter-union war has led to dueling press releases, allegations of harassment, stalking, violence, and even a union member’s death that occurred at a labor conference in Dearborn, Michigan on April 12th. In California, a judge has issued a temporary restraining order against the SEIU over allegations of stalking and harassing CNA executive board members at their homes and workplaces. Last week, AFL-CIO boss John Sweeney issued a press release stating (in part), “Violence in attacking freedom of speech must be strongly condemned.”

“For these union bosses to complain about the union tactics they’re using on each another is both ironic and smacks of union hypocrisy,” List (himself a former union activist) states, “since these are the very tactics these unions deploy on employers and their employees all-too-often during union organizing campaigns throughout the country.”

“Many Americans are, perhaps for the first time, seeing the type of common tactics that union bosses have used against employers and employees for years, only this time unions are doing it to themselves,” List says. “By their own actions against each other, unions are shedding light on exactly why EFCA should be exposed for the fraud that it is.”

“If enacted, EFCA would strip workers of the right to vote on unionization by secret-ballot, causing the unionization of workers based purely on trained union organizers’ ability to obtain signed union authorization cards through harassment and deception, as well as leaving workers exposed to the very tactics these unions are accusing each other of right now,” says List.

An additional component of EFCA is the binding arbitration provision that mandates that a government-appointed arbitrator will impose a contract on a newly-unionized employer if the union and company representatives cannot reach agreement within 120 days of unionization.

“In a global economy, EFCA is the ultimate American job killer,” says List, himself a former union activist whose union job was outsourced pre-NAFTA. “Both forced unionization and binding arbitration will further destroy countless American jobs and cause the destruction of a huge number of small businesses as their ability to compete will be damaged beyond repair.”

“Politicians should not allow themselves to become the political pawns of union bosses in exchange for union support in November,” states List. “Unfortunately, certain politicians are allowing themselves to be used by this special interest group in exchange for union money and union ‘get-out-the-vote’ efforts. However, these same politicians run the risk of becoming the paid-political puppets of union bosses in an effort that may, ultimately, lead to more American
job losses.”
_________________