Unions Anti-Choice

Dem politicians Schakowsky, Durbin and Obama think employees should not be able to cast a secret ballot on whether or not they want to join a union. Of course, should the union win an election under the proposed card check system, they would be forced to pay dues whether they like it or not, often to support union bosses at inflated salaries and political causes they would not choose themselves.

The Dems proposed new law, laughably called the "Employee Free Choice Act", would overturn bedrock NLRB protection of the right to a secret ballot that has been law for over 70 years. WSJ:

Many elected officials said they throw their weight behind organizing drives outside the NLRB process after visiting the front lines of organizing drives. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, from Illinois, for example, said she decided to support the effort by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees to organize 10,000 nurses and other workers at nonprofit health-care center Resurrection Health Care, in part after being barred from entering the company property when accompanying workers who were delivering a letter about staffing issues. She has been joined by an Illinois delegation of Democratic senators Richard Durbin and Barack Obama and 10 House members in signing a letter, asking the health-care concern to meet with the union.

Brian Crawford, a spokesman for the health-care system, said it can't meet with a union that hadn't been elected to represent its workers, adding that "we do not see any movement toward that."

(Of course Schakowsky the feminazi, socialist sympathizer, joined by Sens. Durbin and Obama, is especially eager to target a religious institution, Resurrection Health Care---challenging its compassionate mission, pro-life stance, and nonprofit status.) Not surprisingly, union support, in manpower and megabucks, of Dem pols in elections hinges upon a candidate's support of this UNDEMOCRATIC law. This has been acknowledged by an AFL-CIO organizer:

State federations and CLCs (central labor councils) made endorsements in federal races contingent on support for the Employee Free Choice Act and other organizing efforts.

For more background on this coercive new proposal, check out the Center for Union Facts.

Of course unfortunately for those interested in good governance and good policy, Schakowsky doesn't need to worry about any election challenges in her very left district.

But the issue has broader import for Illinois---union growth is concentrated in government unions, leaving taxpayers footing the bill for salaries higher than the market would pay, and as we well know around Chicago and in Cook County, sometimes for employees less than committed to doing their best---for us. (That is if they are on the job at all.) According to the Center, we would pay 40% less in state income taxes if we weren't paying those inflated union wages.

Right now, we don't have a choice about that.