It’s a relationship that’s at the heart of the economic system in the United States.
Businesses exit to fill a public need or desire, be it manufacturing or selling products or providing services. Their objective, of course, is to turn a healthy profit.
They could not exist without employees, those who do the work that enables the businesses to succeed. In return, they deserve appropriate compensation. It’s the old adage of “a fair day’s work for a fair day’s pay.”
The balance between employers and employees is critical. Unchecked, businesses can make unrealistic — even unsafe — demands on their work force and engage in practices to depress wages. We’ve seen plenty of stories about how workers have been hurt by such things as outsourcing and cutting of benefit. If the pendulum swings too far in the other direction, though, workers can deny their employers the flexibility and financial ability to remain in business.
In our view, potential federal legislation, the Employee Free Choice Act, which would change the requirements for certifying unions, would damage the balance in this crucial relationship. Also called “card-check” legislation, it would allow a union to be formed if more than 50 percent of workers at a business sign cards. Currently, if more than 30 percent of workers sign cards, the National Labor Relations Board schedules a secret-ballot election. No secret-ballot election would be required under the Employee Free Choice Act.
Support for the measure in Congess is reportedly pretty much among party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.
Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican but a moderate who has often infuriated more conservative members of his party, is often a key to getting things passed in the Senate. He has said that elimination of the secret ballot is “at the top of the list” of reasons why he opposes the legislation.
We agree. Employees deserve the opportunity to gather as much information as they can and make their choice by secret ballot without fear of reprisal from either side, just as they do when they go to the polling place to vote for public officials.
There are other provisions in the Employee Free Choice Act that we find objectionable.
One is a provision that would enable a union seeking a first contract to require the employer to enter into binding arbitration if a collective-bargaining agreement were not reached within as few as 120 days.
“The bill’s requirement for compulsory arbitration if an agreement is not reached within 120 days may subject the employer to a deal he or she cannot live with,” Specter said. “Such arbitration runs contrary to the basic tenet of the Wagner Act for collective bargaining, which makes the employer liable only for a deal he or she agrees to.”
It’s clearly a recipe for a business model to be destroyed from the outside, something neither employers nor employees can find inviting.
Another bothersome provision would significantly increase penalties on employers for violating certain labor laws but not address union violations. Businesses are rightly concerned about the National Labor Relations Act being turned into a statute to punish rather get things right for both sides.
There will always be give and take in the ever-evolving relationship between employees and employers, but it can never be allowed to reach the point of coercion on either side.
That ideal balance between business and its workers would simply not be achieved through the Employee Free Choice Act.
