This sounds like something you'd see in a Third World banana republic, overseen by a fascist dictator.

Ok, so I haven't entirely decided how I feel about this yet, but:

This isn't as black and white an issue as you're making it seem. I'm sympathetic to the argument that, in general, secret ballots are a good thing. However, in practice the kind of secret balloting used to certify a union takes months or years to complete, during which time management has significant time and opportunity to intimidate workers against joining the unions.

Under a card check system, a union can be certified much, much quicker.

From everything I understand, management intimidation is far, far more prevalent than union intimidation, so that's why most labor advocates are in favor of this.

Of course, the best possible solution is quick fair secret balloting with no intimidation on either side. I'm not sure how to achieve that.

I should also add that I get very suspicious when I see who's lined up against the EFCA. For the Chamber of Commerce and aligned organizations to paint themselves as the champions of workers' rights is, at best, comical.

MRH -

>>From everything I understand, management intimidation is far, far more prevalent than union intimidation, so that's why most labor advocates are in favor of this.

I happen to have some professional expertise in this area.

Does management intimidation occur (e.g., firing of union supporters)?

Occasionally, but not nearly on the scale that the unions want people to believe. If management has a meeting during work time, and during which people are paid, to give it’s side, the unions call it a “captive audience meeting” and call that employer intimidation – in fact, anything that management does to give the other side of the story (from what the paid, professional union organizers want employees to hear) they call “propaganda” and “intimidation.”

Also, it’s not unheard of for unions to entice employees to get themselves fired (for some infraction), put them on the union payroll (or otherwise make them whole), and then claim that the employee was fired because of their union sympathies - which then enables to make that employee a “symbol” of the “bad employer” and to file a (bogus) unfair labor practices charge.

The field is much more level than what the unions want people to believe. After all, the National Labor Relations Act was written and enacted under FDR, a “progressive” icon.

You should know that unions (legally) get “salts” hired – paid, professional union organizes posing as employees, essentially moles working from inside. These salts typically do not inform other employees that in reality that they’re union organizers, so the employees are led to believe that the “pro union” stuff their hearing is from a sincere coworker.

There are also strict limits on what employers can say to their employees – any “untruth” and the union can file an unfair labor practice charge against the employer – whereas the National Labor Relations Board says that it is not an unfair labor practice for union organizers to mislead or exaggerate, that employees should know that they are trying to sell something and take what union organizers say with a grain of salt. This isn’t true in many, if not most instances, because the unions have managed to portray themselves as benevolent organizations (except say, the Teamsters) that are exist solely to better the lot of working people – and their organizers are trained to take advantage of this – and so many employees (falsely) believe that the union / organizer only has their best interests at heart, and so without hearing the other side they don’t find out the downsides of unionization (of which there are many – it isn’t a black and white matter of “union” all good or all bad, but of pros and cons).

And think about it – if employer intimidation were that bad, wouldn’t employees see through that? And wouldn’t it backfire on employers as employees WITH THE PROTECTION OF A FEDERALLY SUPERVISED SECRET BALLOT ELECTION can react by voting the union in “to protect themselves” from the employer going forward?

Conversely, imagine the inherently intimidating effect of a group of pro-unions employees (who have been coached by a behind the scenes union organizer) knocking on your door, and in front of your family telling you that it would be in your “best interests” to sign?

Union organizers are also notorious for lying to people about what the “card” really means – they’ll say that it is just to be put on a mailing list to receive information, or (ironically) that its only purpose is to call for a secret ballot election. Unions are also notorious for refusing to return signed cards to employees who later changed their minds.

THIS BILL ISN’T ABOUT HELPING EMPLOYEES TO UNIONIZE - IT IS ABOUT HELPING UNIONS TO UNIONIZE EMPLOYEES!

If EFCA were REALLY about the good of employees and ensuring that their desires could be swiftly realized, then wouldn’t the EFCA also include a provision for employees to decertify the union (either replacing one union with another, or to return to union-free status) by “card check?”

It doesn’t. It is designed to be a kind of “Hotel California” for employees – they can “card check in, but they can never leave.”