PRO-CON: Will the anticipated Employee Free Choice Act really give workers more freedom and rights?

PRO

William Lurye, associate general counsel, AFL-CIO

The Employee Free Choice Act will make it easier for workers to bargain for better wages and benefits. If a majority of employees decide they do not want an election and sign documents stating they want to be represented by a union, the employer will be required to deal with the union. Or, if the employees decide they want an election about whether the union will represent them, an election will be held. Either way, it becomes the employees’ choice, and not the employers’ choice, how the union representing the workers will be formed.

Employer-mandated elections have resulted in workers being illegally fired in a quarter of these election campaigns. Employees are routinely threatened and forced to vote against the union. The legislation also guarantees workers a contract when they form a new union. If an employer and the new union are unable to agree on a first contract, there will be federal mediation. If there is still no contract, the matter is referred to binding arbitration. This eliminates incentives under the current law for employers to stall in negotiations. Instead, good faith bargaining is promoted.

The best opportunity for working men and women to get ahead economically is by uniting with co-workers to bargain with their employers for better wages and benefits.

CON

R. Lee Creasman, labor and employment attorney and partner, Elarbee Thompson

No, the Employee Free Choice Act threatens to eliminate individual workers’ freedoms. A piece of legislation with a misleading name, the Employee Free Choice Act’s passage would represent the most significant change to long-established labor laws in over 50 years. EFCA would eliminate secret-ballot union elections and replace the right to vote with a procedure where a union would represent employees if a majority of employees sign union authorization cards, with little regard for the type of pressure exerted on employees to sign cards.

Currently, employees vote privately after hearing the issues discussed by the union and the employer. The most compelling reason not to change the current law is that unions have won over 50 percent of the secret-ballot elections conducted in the last decade. EFCA also would dramatically change the way union contracts are negotiated by eliminating an employer’s ability to take a hard stance at the bargaining table. Instead, the details of the contract could ultimately be decided by an arbitrator, not the employees and employer who would be bound to a two-year agreement neither side wanted. A cleverly titled bill, this legislation would prompt many employers to move jobs to other countries. A more apt title for it is “The Job Elimination Act.”