On Unions and the Employee Free Choice Act

[Conductor42]

I was thinking about the EFCA - and how it might be made into a better. I've got two suggestions so far.

1- ditch the cards, replace it with mail-in ballots. That'll insure privacy, true freedom of choice (as opposed to peer pressure), and give people more time to think about their decisions.

2 - Make mandatory union membership as a condition of employment illegal. No one should have to join a union as a condition of employment, just as no one should get fired for belonging to a union.


Any other ideas?

[joel]

I was thinking about the EFCA - and how it might be made into a better. I've got two suggestions so far.

1- ditch the cards, replace it with mail-in ballots. That'll insure privacy, true freedom of choice (as opposed to peer pressure), and give people more time to think about their decisions.

2 - Make mandatory union membership as a condition of employment illegal. No one should have to join a union as a condition of employment, just as no one should get fired for belonging to a union.


Any other ideas?

Can you explain the EFCA to me? I don't really understand how labor unions (and labor union legislation) work. I think the problem is that every time I try to read something about it, I find that what I read doesn't make sense, presumably because it is using language that has some implicit meaning that I am not "in on". For example when I try to search around to find out what U.S. labor legislation does, I am informed that it grants the rights of people selling labor to organize labor unions, to engage in "collective bargaining", and to take part in strikes. But there must be some implicit/understood meaning here, because to me, their being given this right by law would mean that they previously did not have this legal right--i.e., it was previously a criminal act to do those things. But that seems unlikely. So I read deeper and discover that the legislation makes it illegal for those purchasing labor to refuse to bargain collectively. But what in the world does that mean? What does it mean to refuse to bargain? Suppose I am in a marketplace, and seller A comes to me and offers to sell a banana to me for $1. Suppose seller B comes to me and offers to sell me a banana for $2. I decline B's offer. Is that what "refusing to bargain" with B means? What if I tell B that I have a bid at $1, and I'm going to go with it unless B can offer me a price lower than $2; take it or leave it, but then B keeps trying to make me offers above $1, "How about $1.95? $1.90? $1.87?..." And so I get annoyed and dismiss him and stop wasting my time. Is that "refusing to bargain"? Maybe I've been to the marketplace, and know from repeated experience that B is just a waste of my time to even listen to B's offers, so I try to avoid B completely the next time I go to the market. Is that "refusing to bargain?" I just don't know what kind of thing is actually illegal here.

And there seems to be something about employees voting on whether to unionize. But what is the purpose of voting? Suppose the employees are considering option A or option B. Suppose the workers have true free choice--that those who prefer option A are free to partake in it, while those who prefer option B are free to partake in it. But then that makes voting on A/B irrelevant. The only point in voting is if you are going to forcibly impose the majority choice (A or B) on the minority employees. But why would we want that? Why would we want to give that the support of law?

So what happens in practice? If the majority vote to unionize, then all of the employees are automatically unionized, even those who did not want to unionize? And the union gets to negotiate everyone's employment, even for those who did (and still do) not want to unionize?