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The "Employee Free Choice Act" -- what's the bottom line?
Charlotte, NC, March 3, 2009. The "Employee Free Choice Act" (EFCA) is dangerously close to
becoming federal law and may be introduced as soon as this week. This act, long desired by
unions which have seen their relevance, membership, and influence wane in recent years, is
the subject of much propaganda, pro and con. For example, the Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs,
a business group that opposes the EFCA, estimates that passage of the EFCA would cost the United
States 600,000 jobs in 2010 alone as an increasingly unionized workforce burdens the nation's
already stressed employers. The AFL-CIO on the other side is running a "contest" it calls "The
Chicken Little Sky is Falling Bizarre Corporate Panic Disorder over Workers' Rights Award" which
it says will go to "the corporate mouthpiece that spews the most outrageous claims" about the EFCA.
The average business may not be able to separate fact from fiction amidst the rhetoric, but in fact
the basic provisions and the intent of the EFCA are both relatively simple and clear.
The EFCA is intended to make it easier for unions to organize worksites by circumventing management.
Rather than having a secret ballot election which would give an employer a chance to make its case before
employee agree to be represented by a union, and in which employees could vote without either the union or
the employer knowing how they voted, under the EFCA a union could organize simply by obtaining the signatures
of a majority of the bargaining unit (the employees it seeks to represent), a procedure known as a "card check."
It could potentially do this without the employer's advance knowledge, and certainly without providing employers
a reasonable opportunity to give employees a non-union perspective. In a card check procedure unions can also
pressure employees to sign up since employees cannot express their choices anonymously; anyone opposing the union
would have to do so visibly and risk everything from peer pressure to illegal reprisal for doing so.
Unions contend that card checks are needed, and more fair to employees than a secret ballot, because employers
pressure employees not to unionize, sometimes illegally. While that might be true in some cases, the EFCA does
not contain any mechanism to allow employers or anyone else to make the case against unionization or participate
in the discussion. It essentially gives unions all the cards in communicating with -- and potentially pressuring
-- employees.
Under the EFCA, once a union wins recognition, if it and the employer do not agree to a collective bargaining agreement (
a contract containing the union/employer agreement) within a given period of time, the terms of the contract would be
imposed by federal arbitrators. The contents of such contracts are unpredictable and could well shift according to the
prevailing political winds at the time, which might give either party an incentive to stonewall and seek a better deal
in arbitration. The only thing that is certain is that employers will have little or no control over the terms handed
down to them if they and their new unions disagree.
An alternative law, the Secret Ballot Protection Act, has been proposed. This would require secret ballot union elections
supervised by the NLRB in all cases -- a scenario unions are eager to avoid in order to shut employers out of the
unionization decisions of their workforces. At present, however, it has only minority support.
The bottom line: The EFCA is poised to become yet another in a long and growing line of regulatory bad news for American
employers at a time when they, and the nation, can ill afford it.
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About SOI
Active in the professional employer services industry since 1990, SOI has emerged
as one of the leading PEOs in the United States. For small and medium-sized employers
in select industries, we serve as a trusted partner and function as a comprehensive,
integrated human resource department. Our concept facilitates our customer's access to
beneficial resources and connections to "blue-chip" service providers otherwise out of reach.
Our team of skilled professionals provides expertise in human resources and compliance,
risk management, employee benefits, payroll processing, and information technologies.
SOI is based in Charlotte, North Carolina and supports tens of thousands of worksite employees
within our customer locations throughout the United States. (For additional information,
visit SOI's website at www.soi.com)
Contact: media, Eldridge Bravo, Executive Vice President, 1.888.295.6957 or
info@soi.com
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