The Card Check System

If Obama is elected President, my guess is that he will want to do something that will make a big splash with those special interest groups who got him elected. Bill Clinton did it with his executive order approving "gays in the military." Of course, with that debacle, public opinion forced Clinton back down and, as result, we wound up with the ever-controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy for gays in the military.

My guess is that Barack Obama will reward the labor unions for all their hard with an executive order "or" his signature on a Congressional bill that instates the "Card Check System" for unionizing businesses and corporations. The Card Check System will eliminate more than 60 years of secret balloting in deciding whether or not a company's employees wish to unionize. Instead, a union representative will confront each prospective company employee for an "oral vote" as to whether or not that employee wants to join a union. The result of that face-to-face vote will be "check off" on a card; followed by a signature of that employee. The union bosses will have possession and control of all the cards that are taken in the process. As soon as 51 percent of the employees "Card Check" to indicate that they want to unionize, the company is said to be automatically unionized. There will be no company wide vote. No union representatives can be barred from "talking" to any company's employees; either on or off working time or work hours.

To make the elimination of the secret balloting system more palatable in the minds of the American public, the Democrats have come up with the very democratic-sounding name of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). I guess they learned this trick when they decided to drop all references to the word abortion by cooking up today's widely used term of "Pro-Choice" to indicate being pro-abortion. But, make no mistake about it, and with no Obama-like insult to Sarah Palin, this is truly like putting lipstick on a pig. There is absolutely nothing "Free Choice" about having a system that could result in union retaliation against those who voted "no" when the union bosses absolutely know how each and every person voted. This system is totally ripe for the extortion of employees by other union workers and the union leadership; either before or after the company has become unionized. By its very nature, the Card Check System is designed to be a form of psychological and, possibly, physical intimidation.

Sadly, this new law of Congress will probably go untested in the courts because even our own Constitution doesn't specify "secret balloting" for elections. The fact that we have "secret ballots" for any elections in America is only due to state constitutions which have been amended over the years. Prior to that, voting was done orally as in the Card Check System and as it is still done in many caucus voting systems during the primaries; and you only have to have listened to Bill Clinton to know he thought that the caucuses were riddled with problems (See the story and video). Even former Democratic Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern has come out vehemently against the "Free Choice" law because of the intimidation factor (click to see video).

Certainly, the Card Check System will benefit the labor unions which have been losing membership over the years. And, if Mr. Obama wins he can thank the unions like the SEIU and AFL-CIO for his win. Whether a new President Obama uses the "Free Choice" Act as his payback or something else, there will be a payback to some group and it will be done very early in the first month or month-and-a-half of his Administration. Just mark my words.

The Unions are Very, Very Good to Me

Barack Obama spends a lot of time talking about lobbyists. He likes to point to John McCain who has had a couple former lobbyist (really former government employees) working on his campaign. Barack Obama wants the voters to know that politicians who work with, spending time with, or, go on junkets with lobbyists are in the "bag" for the industries that those lobbyists represent. He and other Democrats call them the "special interests" and they love to point to big oil and big drug companies as the worst of the worst.

But, Barack Obama has no problems with his own "special interest" groups. One such group is the AFL-CIO who just endorsed Barack Obama (See Full Story). The best a politician can expect from a lobbyist is a lunch or dinner or, maybe, a golf trip to the Barbados or something. But, when a group like a labor union back you, you can expect multi-millions being spent by that group in getting you elected. You can expect millions of union workers who will vote for you and volunteer their time to get the vote out in you behalf.

In turn, you can expect that Barack Obama will be exceeding beneficial to the labor union. He might create well paid "green collar" jobs that will primarily benefit the unions and may do absolutely nothing for our energy situation. He might push higher and higher minimum wage legislation. This would make the unions happy because many have contracts that trigger an automatic "parity" pay raise if the minimum wage is upped. He might block free trade agreements so that union jobs are not lost to lower paying (and more competitive) laborers in other countries. He might push to eliminate the "secret ballot" for unionizing companies and, instead, back the "check card" system that gives intimidating power to the union bosses. Or, he might back the elimination of programs like "No Child Left Behind" because the testing aspects might jeopardize union teacher jobs.

Yeah, lobbyists are bad but, union endorsements are a lot more powerful and a lot more dangerous to the health of our country. Think about that when the former world's biggest auto company, General Motors, falls into second place. think about that as our failing schools in this country fall into more disarray as some future President works his magic to get union teachers a pay raise without a commensurate increases in performance or performance measurements.