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Dave Adkisson Give Me A Break!

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Dave Adkisson, President Kentucky Chamber of Commerce had a letter published in the Hardin County News Enterprise, click here to see it or read it at the bottom of this post. David Adkisson thanked Brett Guthrie (KY-2) for standing up to the The Employee Free Choice Act and called it dangerous legislation. In his letter he says " Because unions would know who had and had not signed a card, workers would be exposed to unrelenting pressure and coercion.  Exposing workers to this harassment may seem unfair, but the goal of this legislation isn’t fairness – it’s getting workers to sign cards and begin paying union dues".
Dave Adkisson seems to indicate he's worried about the American worker when in reality, I feel, he, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and the United States Chamber of Commerce want cheap labor for those they represent. I understand that, but when Dave Adkisson seems to indicate he's standing up for the American worker I feel he's being deceptive to say the least. It seems to me they Dave Adkisson, the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce and the United States Chamber of Commerce want to instill fear of labor Unions into the hearts of the American worker, when in fact there is know reason to fear them at all. This is the same tired old fear tactic used by the GOP to keep us occupied with fear while their pals on Wall Street were stealing us blind.
So what does the Chamber of Commerce really stand for?

• According to this author they stand for cheap foreign labor.
• They remain the staunchest advocate of the benefits of the NAFTA! Might I ask benefits for for who?
• They gave us 15 reasons to support DR-CAFTA. 
• The Kentucky Chamber opposes state and local wage mandates that go beyond
  federal requirements. When state or local governments attempt to mandate wage
  and benefit thresholds, safety regulations or additional standards that go beyond
  what is necessary to provide basic, uniform protections, the added cost
  of doing business — and the lack of focus on the real issues that could make a
  difference – decreases Kentucky’s overall competitiveness, particularly with our
  border and peer states.
• The Kentucky Chamber supports legislation that repeals the employer mandate to withhold union dues from an employee’s salary.
• The Kentucky Chamber is firmly opposed to any local or statewide expansion of public employee collective bargaining. The expansion of public employee collective bargaining can lead to inefficient administration of public duties, increased costs to taxpayers and an increased likelihood of interruptions of essential government services.
• They campaign against Democratic candidates and use excerpts from news papers like the Paducah Sun to promote their view. Click here to see the video they used against Bruce Lunsford, click here to see their union fear tactic ad and click here to see their youtube channel.

I suggest the video below is really what the Chamber of Commerce believes in and the American worker will never be able to work cheap enough or hard enough to suit them.

Read the Dave Adkisson letter to the Editor after the hump.

The Real Truth About the Employee Free Choice Act

The fight for re-building an American middle-class is soon to be joined. The only way for big business and the status-quo to defeat this common sense approach to the rights of workers to join the middle-class is disinformation. They know that the facts are simply not on their side, so they will sink hundreds of millions of dollars to try and mislead the American worker about what the Employee Free Choice Act would mean to them and businesses and the economy.

The first lie they always resort to is that "Card Check Neutrality" will end the worker's freedom for a secret ballot election over a union. This is very far from the truth. The word "Neutrality" is there for a good reason. You see, under the current process only the company gets to decide if there will be a vote on the union after the cards are signed by a majority of workers to form a union. Under the Employee Free Choice Act, the actual employees who have signed the cards are allowed to choose if they wish to have the cards represent their vote, or wait months for a secret ballot election.

Josh Goldstein of American Rights at Work sums it up nicely:

Crain’s: Does this bill take away the right of workers to hold an election to determine whether to form a union?
   

Goldstein: No, not at all. That’s one of the myths opponents of this law would love for you to believe, but it’s not true. Workers will still have the right to request an election by signing a card indicating a desire to hold an election. The difference is that neither the National Labor Relations Board nor the employer can force an election on them. If workers sign a petition indicating their desire to have an election, then the NLRB can call an election; but if a majority want union representation and indicate that on a card, they will not be forced to go through that additional step of holding an election. EFCA gives workers the right to call an election, not management.

http://www.workforce.com/section/03/feature/26/23/26/262331.html

You see, after a majority of workers have petitioned for the right to join the middle-class, the time period between the signing of the petition can serve only one purpose. To give companies the chance to force employees to listen to hours upon hours of anti-union propoganda and go among there employees with threats and intimidation and fear of job loss to get them to change their minds.

Unlike the company, union organizers and officials cannot force their way into a working person's life. They cannot force the worker to let them into their homes, or make them come to meeting places and listen to what the proponents of the union have to say. Workers willingly contribute their free time to hear the arguments of organizers and decide to sign cards accordingly. The organizers simply do not have the right to force themselves into a working person's life like their bosses at work and in fact the huge majority of American workers that sign cards seek out the union for the protections that collective bargaining offers in the first place.

Another lie about the Employee Free Choice Act is that in a time of recession it will further damage the economy. However,  A growing list of economists actually believe that the Employee Free Choice Act will actually help our economy. A summary of their beliefs:

So what is the economic case for the EFCA? The first part of the case is simple: capital can organize. That's what a corporation is, a legally protected way for capital to organize. For a market to function, the participants have to have roughly equal power: that means that because we need concentrations of capital to run a modern society, we must also have concentrations of labor, and that means that labor must be able to organize to bargain fairly. In far too many places, a few companies have a monopoly on the good jobs, and can therefore pay less than the work is worth.

The second part is that there has to be a linkage between productivity, and wages. If not, then eventually consumers burn through savings, burn through credit, and collapse in a heap. As they are doing now. Finally the economic case for unionization is that a better work force can do better work. America's period of most rapid economic growth, was also the period of growth of unions. If the profits of work fall behind the profits of speculation, soon work will be seen as something that fools do.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/25/economists-with-a-clue-epi-sponsors-add-signed-by-an-all-star-cast/

In fact, just the opposite of what the opponents of an American middle-class would have you believe is true:

So what about the argument that unions make companies "less competitive?" It's only true if de-unionized companies are allowed to act as a free rider for services and innovations that unionized labor forces create. It isn't that unions are less competitive, it is that de-unionized companies steal from the common good. This was the motivating purpose behind the original National Labor Relations Act: so that a few factories paying poor wages did not drive down wages for all. And without buying power for all, inequality festers, and people cannot afford to buy the very things the society can afford to make.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/25/economists-with-a-clue-epi-sponsors-add-signed-by-an-all-star-cast/

During the current economic crises that analysis should raise more than a few eyebrows. It is also curious to note that the very same people that have caused the current crash in the economy are also the first ones to rise up and fight against the Employee Free Choice Act. The plain and simple truth is that the "small businesses" the opponents of an American middle-class will try to convince you will be destroyed by this act are actually exempt from federal labor law:

First, the vast majority of small businesses are exempt from Federal labor law.  According to the US Census, 97% of all businesses have no employees.  According to the National Federation of Independent Businesses, their typical member has less than 5 employees and less than $350,000 in annual revenue, and are thus exempt from the National Labor Relations Act.  http://www.nfib.com/page/nfibRepresents.html    Although the NFIB has been around since 1943, and Republicans have often been the majority party in Washington, the Federal exemption for small businesses has remained stagnant at $500,000 in gross interstate trade since 1959.  Adjusted for inflation, the threshold for the National Labor Relations Board to hear a case would be $3.1 million.   If the NFIB and Republicans are truly anti-union and friends of small businesses, it is inexplicable that they have not pushed for more small businesses to remain exempt from Federal labor law.

http://unionreview.com/small-business-owner-labor!

Actually, quite to the contrary of what the corporations would have you believe, union prescence in a company can actually HELP businesss. Just take one look at this fact page and you can see exactly why:

http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/publications/issues/unions-making-a-difference-for-business-20080825-636-37-37.html

The fact is that the Employee Free Choice Act will not hurt small business. The companies that will be affected the most will be in the ever-expanding service industry. Companies such as McDonald's, and similar restaurants and yes, Wal-Mart. Not exactly your mom and pop small business firms. These are exactly the kind of jobs that have driven wages and benefits down, while making many hundreds of billions of dollars in profits.

The Employee Free Choice Act is being introduced in Congress today. Lets make sure to write and call and let our Representatives and Senators know that we support the Employee Free Choice Act and they should too.