I have argued that forcing a worker to submit to the will of a majority of his colleagues on the question of whether a union will represent him is a violation of that worker’s freedom of association. Association with a union is rightly a matter of individual not collective choice. Here I want to consider attempts by unions further to diminish worker freedom of association by trying to silence or at least obstruct employer campaign speech in the run-up to representation elections.
Freedom of association in union representation elections requires that workers be able to cast an informed vote. Workers must have access to both pro- and anti-unionization arguments. We can count on union organizers vigorously to present pro-unionization arguments. They start doing so long before any representation election is scheduled because they must get 30 percent of eligible workers to sign cards requesting unionization before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will order an election.
We usually can count on employers vigorously to present anti-unionization arguments, but they have less time than union organizers have to make their case. They often don’t know about union organizing efforts until the union has collected the requisite signatures. The time between the NLRB’s order to have an election and the actual election is crucial if workers are to be able to hear the employer’s side of the story and thus be able to make an informed choice about how to vote.
In 1947 Congress amended Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to make explicit the right of workers to refrain from unionization. To give effect to that right, Congress added Section 8(c), which affirmed the right of employers to engage in free speech during election campaigns. Congress wanted workers to hear both sides of the debate over whether to unionize so that they could make informed decisions.
In 1948 the NLRB endorsed this intent of Congress by declaring, in General Shoe Corp., that its primary duty under the new law was to support workers’ right to “make a free and fair choice” on the question of whether to unionize. Absent force or fraud, election debate is, the Board asserted, the best way to enable workers to do so.
In Linn v. United Plant Guard Workers (1966) the Supreme Court noted approvingly that the NLRB does not “police or censor propaganda used in the elections it conducts, but rather leaves to the good sense of the voters the appraisal of such matters, and to opposing parties the task of correcting inaccurate and untruthful statements.” The Court went on to affirm that “debate . . . should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks.”
Notwithstanding the clear intent of the 1947 Congress, and the eager endorsement of that intent by the 1948 NLRB, and the 1966 Supreme Court, the present NLRB demurs. It takes its orders from unions, and unions seek to silence employer speech.
The failed card-check bill would have silenced employer speech because it would have forced an employer to recognize a union as the monopoly bargaining agent over his employees if it collected the signatures of at least 50 percent of them on cards requesting such recognition. There would be no election campaign during which employers could give their side of the debate.
Card Check by Fiat
Union cronies in Congress failed to deliver on card check, but on August 26, 2011, the pro-union NLRB troika—Mark G. Pearce, Craig Becker, and Wilma B. Liebman—created a limited form of card check by regulatory fiat. In its Lamons Gasket decision the troika overturned the Board’s 2007 decision in Dana Corp.
The NLRA permits an employer voluntarily to recognize a union as the monopoly bargaining agent over his employees if the union collects the signatures of at least 30 percent of them on cards that request such recognition. In Dana Corp. the NLRB ruled that when an employer chooses to grant recognition to a union without first letting the employees vote on whether to be subjected to union rule, the affected employees could immediately demand an election to challenge the employer’s voluntary recognition.
In Lamons Gasket the troika declared that the affected employees would have to wait for at least six months, and in some cases up to one year, before they could hold a challenge election. This means that union rule over workers, lasting at least six months, can be achieved by a 30-percent card check rule.
Why would an employer choose to turn his workers over to union rule without a secret ballot election? Because he fears a “corporate campaign.” Following Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a union picks a target enterprise to unionize and demands that the target not resist. If the target chooses to defend itself and its workers against unionization, the union forms coalitions with leftist community-activist groups to try to destroy the target’s standing in the community and its relationships with lenders, suppliers and customers. The union and its allies smear the target and its officials as monsters who want to take away their employees’ freedom of association. The union and its allies, often including benighted clergy, claim the moral high ground. But employers who choose to resist really occupy the moral high ground. They promote their employees’ freedom of association.
Shortened Election Process
In another attack on employer campaign speech, in June 2011 the NLRB troika decided to cut the representation election process from its present median of 38 days to ten days. With less time to speak, employers will speak less.
There are several reasons for workers to choose to be union-free. For example, union-free enterprises offer more job security than their union-impaired counterparts because the latter are too sclerotic to frequently changing global market conditions. Union-free firms can reward workers on the basis of productivity. In union-impaired firms pay is based on job classifications and seniority. Union-free workers are free to excel, while union-impaired workers are chained to a contract. Unions promote an adversarial relationship between workers and employers, while union-free employers are free to enlist workers as partners in building durable and growing value.
The NLRA illegitimately forces workers into representation elections. To make matters worse, the current NLRB seeks to obstruct the access of workers to arguments in favor of remaining union-free. Employers are the most reliable conveyors of those arguments. Employers must be free to speak.
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