-By Warner Todd Huston
One of the main premises of the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is the card check feature. This feature eliminates the right of potential union employees to have the benefit of a secret ballot when they vote for or against organizing under a union.
Recently, Rasmussen did a poll on the basic concept to see what the prevailing feelings were and it looks like the union position comes out heavily on the losing end of the stats with this one. What’s more, most people agree with the Republican position that opposes the union’s.
Thirty percent (30%) of Americans say it is fair to form a union without having a secret ballot vote if a majority of a company’s workers sign a card saying they want to unionize.But a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of adults do not believe it is fair to form a union without a secret vote. Eighteen percent (18%) are not sure.
Sixty-five percent (65%) of Republicans believe it’s unfair to establish a union without a secret ballot. Democrats and adults not affiliated with either party are more closely divided, although pluralities of both groups agree with the majority of Republicans.
And that isn’t the only part of the EFCA that most people oppose.
Just 21% of all Americans believe the federal government should be allowed to mandate an agreement defining pay and benefits for a company’s employees if the company and their employees’ union cannot reach an agreement on a contract within 90 days. Fifty-six percent (56%) are opposed to giving the government this power which is another provision of the EFCA.
The more informed that American’s are about the provisions of the EFCA the more opposed they are to it.
Even Democrats find a near even split on these issues which isn’t good news for unions hoping for a lopsided, Democratic majority of opinion to come down on their side.
We are close to killing this bill. We must all keep the pressure on, though, because the battle is not over yet.
On that point, recently Senator John Thune (R, S.D.) spoke on the progress of the EFCA in the Senate. Thune said that it looks as if the bill will not pass in its present state.
“I want to be very clear on this point,” Thune said, “There cannot be a compromise when it comes to card check and mandatory arbitration. The stakes are simply too high for workers, for small businesses, and for our economic recovery. With or without Senator Franken in the Senate, Republicans in the Senate are committed to defending the rights of American workers by defeating this bill.”
Like I said, we need to keep the pressure on these guys in D.C. to kill this bill. If we don’t some night, in the dead of night, we will se it slipped through when the pols in D.C. think no one is watching.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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