Commentary - Sarah Longwell: Big Labor’s little secret

It doesn’t come up at cocktail parties, and you and your brother-in-law probably won’t get into a shouting match about it at Sunday dinner (like last week when he announced he’d bought handguns for all his children — even the 9-year-old).

The bill is dishonestly called the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), and it would redefine the way unions conduct organizing elections. Instead of the traditional private ballot elections, where you and you alone know how you voted, union leaders want to make voting public by having employees sign a card indicating whether they want to pay dues for union representation. Needless to say, this public system of “voting” — commonly referred to as “card check” — is rife with intimidation, coercion and good old-fashioned peer pressure. Protection from such behavior is why ballot booths and private voting were invented in the first place. This change in the way unions organize may seem like an obscure technicality, an inside-the-Beltway labor issue that won’t affect most Americans. But that’s just what Big Labor wants you to think. In fact, it’s counting on Americans’ general uninterest in labor issues and the somewhat technical/boring nature of the bill to slip this one past the goalie.

However, the implications of this change in unionizing rules are as far-reaching as they are hazardous. And Americans will regret their apathy once the consequences of the legislation become clear. The passage of EFCA will let union organizers declare open season on nonunion employees.

Businesses previously not considered for unionization will suddenly become prime targets. Clerks, architects, administrative personnel — it will be so easy to organize that a whole new class of workers will find themselves suddenly forced into paying union dues.

As unions stack their rolls with new members, so, too, will their coffers swell with the infusion of cash from members’ forced dues — $5 billion a year, by conservative estimates. This money will be spent primarily on two things: more organizing and political donations.

The increased giving to politicians, more than 90 percent of which goes to Democrats (despite polls showing almost 40 percent of the union rank-and-file vote Republican), will amplify unions’ already significant quid-pro-quo relationship with many members of Congress. More money for politicians means more laws passed that are favorable to unions and catastrophic to job creation. Higher taxes, more invasive corporate governance regulations, restrictive trade policies, health care mandates, etc.

These measures will wreak havoc on our already fragile economy by forcing businesses to cut jobs, raise prices or move overseas in order to stay in business. Imagine what happened to the auto, steel and airline industries happening across vast sectors of the economy. Bad news indeed.

This renaissance of the labor movement will pay long-lasting dividends to the Democrats, which is why both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were falling all over themselves to support EFCA in front of union crowds. But aside from these targeted mentions, the average person doesn’t hear much about it.

The hope of the union lobbyists is that they can keep EFCA flying under the radar, that average Americans won’t figure out what they are up to. They know that once people hear that they are trying to hijack a private system of voting in order to force more Americans into unions, the public will reject the idea for what it is: unfair, underhanded and ultimately destructive.

So bring it up at the next office cocktail party. Explain to your brother-in-law (assuming he’s unarmed) why this legislation will affect even those who rarely have cause to think about unions. Because if we don’t start talking about it soon, we won’t be able to stop it. And we’ll have no one but ourselves to blame when the full impact of EFCA is measured.

Sarah Longwell is the communications director at the Center for Union Facts, a nonprofit watchdog for American workers.