The Paducah Business Journal Attempts to Propogandize Workers

Today, I saw a free publication in my local convienence store called the "Paducah Business Journal'. It was printed by Kentucky Publishing Inc. A story on the frontpage caused me to take notice and pick a copy up to bring home and read. It provides a telling insight into the strategy that the enemies of the middle-class and working Americans will employ to try and defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. The article was titled "Small Business Owners Speak out Against the Employee 'Forced' Choice Act. I want to share some of the article with all of you.

Some of the propoganda contained in these paragraphs is blantantly false:

"The truth behind the rhetoric is that EFCA would strip workers of their right to a private ballot. Economists and organizations funded by union leaders choose to ignore this fact, instead of promoting the idea that eliminating the secret ballot and inviting government bureacrats into the workplace will rebuild the economy" said Katie Packer, executive director of the Workforce Fairness Institute. "However, the small businesses that grow our economy agree that this bill will cost jobs and force companies out of business".

EFCA contains two key components that are troubling to Americans- the removal of the secret ballot for workers and the introduction of government-run binding arbitration procedures in union negotiations. Employees and employers alike know that know that these crippling changes to our current unionizing laws are not only unneccesary- they will hurt our economy and cost jobs.

A bill to eliminate the secret ballot election in the workplace is currently making its way through Congress. Something like this could never happen, right? Actually, it could. Under the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act" workers, in violation of our own Democratic principles, would be denied their American right to a private ballot in union organizing elections in the workplace. Workers would be forced to publicly state their vote for everyone to see. This is more appropriately called the FORCED CHOICE ACT and would fundamentally change the rights of employees in the workplace... it would force unions on them; force contracts on them and force payment of dues on them.

Now, this is a sickening distortion of what the Employee Free Choice Act would attempt to do. Actually, it would force a middle-class back onto greedy employers who refuse to pay wages equivilant to profit to the very workers who have made those profits possible. Once again "Small Businesses" is used as the code word for greedy corporations who want to horde all the profits to the top and stagnate wages for workers, while paying huge bonuses to those who sit in their ivory towers and do little actual work.

It is important to note that no worker is "forced" to sign a union card. What the opponents of workers achieving the middle-class don't want to tell you about workers being "forced" to do something is this; when a majority of workers in a company have signed cards stating that they want to form a union under the current system the "secret ballot" election is scheduled weeks or months from the time when workers have signed cards stating they wish to form a union and negotiate a binding contract.

During the time when workers are waiting for the actual vote on the union, they are "forced" by the management and their employers to sit through meeting after meeting on company time listening to hours upon hours of propoganda such as this telling lies about the union and what it would accomplish in thier lives. They are not allowed to stay out of the meetings even if they know they want to vote for the union. It is "forced" upon them. They are "forced" to the side on the company clock one by one and bribed, lied to, and turned against one another. Workers with less seniority, and lower performance levels are promised raises, and promotions over harder working, more qualified co-workers if the union fails. Then even though a majority of them have already signed cards stating that they want a union, they are so exhausted and brainwashed by the company that many of them either vote against it, or just don't vote at all when they really wanted a union and  signed a card to form one. That is why these elections are so important to management and the corporations, they allow them plenty of time to poison the process with lies, propoganda, and good old fashioned strong arming.

Many economists believe that the Employee Free Choice Act will be good for our economy because of pure common sense. If an employee gets to negotiate fair wages and benefits, then that employee is lifted from poverty, or just above into the middle-class. A stronger, more populated middle-class means that millions more Americans are not only just living paycheck to paycheck, but actually have money to pump into the economy that has for too long been reserved to the very people in management and ownership who are trying to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. They are not doing so because they are afraid that it wll cost jobs, or crash the economy, they are doing it because they do not want the American worker to be afforded just a few of the luxuries that they enjoy from the labors of the workers.

It all comes down to the greed of a very few. We see what the current policies forwarded by the greediest and least patriotic among us who seek to horde all the money to the top 2% and shrink the middle-class into non-existence have done to our economy. Under these policies, wages have stagnated, the middle-class has become unattainable for millions, and the economy has been crashed off a cliff. Do American workers really believe that these people with thier policies and propoganda hold the solution?

Our unions in America are the greatest, most dependable vehicle for working men and women to leave poverty behind and join the middle-class. A middle-class is distinctly American and the Employee Free Choice Act seeks to empower workers to lift themselves out of poverty by standing together and negotiating fair wages and benefits from employers who would much rather keep all the profits a company makes to the very few at the top. When the middle-class expands and more workers get to reap the rewards of their own labors it is not only good for the economy, but for the American way of life.

No amount of propoganda and clever wording by a selfish few in their ivory towers will ever change that fact. I hope my fellow working Americans will see through the propoganda of the greedy few and demand that Congress will expand the middle-class by passing the Employee Free Choice Act. Standing up for your fellow workers and standing for freedom in the workplace is a distinctly American thing to do.

Comments

[Jim Pence]

Don't be surprised if you find one of those stuffed in the church bulletin and handed to you by a deacon when you go to church Sunday. That's how it works in rural Kentucky.

[Ed Bradford]

Do you have any ideal what "small business" means or how much effort is required to start one? If you think putting groceries on shelves is equivalent to figuring out how to finance a large building, buy organic foods, get them delivered in a timely fashion and regularly, organize 10's of workers to shelve, check out, clean, and a hundred other things it takes to run a large grocery store, then you don't deserve to participate in the fruits of the industrial revolution. With your thinking we would all be an agrarian society and as happy and content as the Native Americans before Columbus.

Like it or not, the modern world is a creature of free enterprise and free labor. Simply confiscating other peoples property may be emotionally healing for you, but unfair in the extreme as any penniless 20 year old on the way up the economic latter will tell you.

I suggest you get busy and start climbing that ladder yourself. You won't believe how satisfying it can be AND you can treat all the people you meet on the way up fairly and well. You can become a beacon of light for a new version of free enterprise. Fix it, don't just throw it away.

[Mountain Man]

James 5:1-6
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.

People need to be paid a decent wage instead of having their jobs and livelihood exported. Of course James 5 is evidently not in the Bible that "send it to China" Mitch McConnell reads. If one of these garbage pamphlets is put in a church bulletin I suggest that you that "church" and find a church that worships God.

[bf]

Every time there's a minimum wage law before congress, the Chamber of Commerce spreads propaganda about how it will kill small businesses. And every time the minimum wage is passed, the economy improves. Organized labor, through collective bargaining, guarantees a healthy middle class in this country. Ever since small minded Babbitts (like Ed Bradford?) started voting for Republicans like Reagan in the 80's, things have gone downhill.

Ed sounds like some right wing gas bag who shops at Wal-Mart to save a nickel on a tube of toothpaste and wonders why all the stores around the town square have closed. Or the guy who voted for Ronald Reagan and then wonders why his plant shut down.

On the other hand, I actually do run a small business, and I don't like paying taxes (especially when they're wasted on bone-headed things like the Iraq War) but I'm paying less taxes as a corporation than I ever paid as an individual. I also employee union members, and pay them over scale (more than the wage scale as per the contract). I get the best people available and do the best work in town. The paper-work is a pain, but I just figure that's part of the price paid for being a success. I personally took two weeks off to go out of state to volunteer for Obama, and my only complaint so far is that he's not liberal enough! Remember, this is coming from a guy who's been making between 150k - 250k for over ten years.

So when I hear guys squawk about how hard it is to run a business, I think to myself, "yeah, I know how hard it is. Do you? Maybe you're doing it wrong".

Now I'm going to STFU and get back to work. Yeah, that's right! I work, too!

[Richard Dillon]

bf,

Brilliant comment!!

[James Clayton]

More union propaganda. As businesses struggle to stay afloat and avoid layoffs, we are to believe that they have nothing better with their time than shut down production and talk to their employees about EFCA.

[Richard Dillon]

James Clayton,

Far from propoganda. I have been through a union fight and that is exactly what they did. Shut down production, brought the owners and a bunch of their lawyers into the warehouse, and called several two hour meetings on company time.

If companies would pay worth a crap then they would not have to worry about their workers seeking a union now would they?? But just think, if the EFCA passes, then companies wouldn't have to waste all that time talking to their employees about it. They can take the time to negotiate a contract, and then have much happier, more productive workers with more money to pump into the economy.

[Mountain Man]

I have never worked for a Union but I have nothing against a Union. All that a Union does is negotiate a contract so that everyone knows what to expect. I worked for a small business when I lived in Nashville, TN and did not get paid for a large number of hours that I worked. I was told that I would have to furnish computers for customers at my own expense. The manager kept telling me that he knew that I was afraid of losing my job. Oh by the way did I mention that the manager of the company was a white guy from South Africa and admitted several times to using cocaine? There were three people that quit that company, myself included, within a three week period. All this talk about going to the labor board is hog wash. After all we did have a secretary of labor until recently that thought that the American workers have hygiene problems and need anger management classes. The only reason that an employer would not want a labor Union is because the employer wants to "see what they can get by with". It really amazes me when people want you to "help them with something" but if the same person who is in business does something for you or someone else they want to get paid for it. This is why some people have money and some don't. You will see these very people in church on Sunday. I have seen it happen over and over. We need to quit electing people like "send it to China" McConnell. Usually I am not that hard to get along with but if I met Mitch McConnell face to face I would have no problem showing him my center digit and telling him that he can do to himself what husbands and wives do to each other. This also goes for that low life SOB George Bush (and I don't mean "Swell Ole Boy"). I used to be a card carrying member of the Republican Party. When the psychic worshiping Ronald Reagan began his low classed crap of job exportation to Mexico I changed my mind. But if you will remember, that low classed Bob Dole used to tell us that "if we don't help them they will go Communist". I guess that Mitch McConnell might be saying the same about China except that China has been under Communism since 1949 so Mitch that dog won't hunt. But then there is ex-Vice President Danny Dumb ass Quayle who thinks that if you walk like a duck, quack like a duck, and live in China you can't be a Communist. Well I think that Mr. Jintao and the Chinese Communist Party has proven him wrong. By the way, ever wonder why Labor Unions are illegal in Communist Countries? Think about what Mitch McConnell said about labor unions before the November 1998 elections. See any similarities?

[Mountain Man]

The next to last sentence in the post on March 5, 2009 by Mountain Man is incorrect. The corrected sentence is as follows:
"Think about what Mitch McConnell said about labor unions before the November 2008 elections".