OPINION:
This week, Senate Republicans will continue working on their proposed health care reform bill, which is polling at 38 percent favorable. Meanwhile, another piece of legislation which polls near 80 percent favorability is hiding in plain sight. The Employee Rights Act (ERA) calls for guaranteed secret ballot elections as a condition of unionization. It requires periodic union recertification after substantial workforce turnover.
Maybe you heard the head of the AFL-CIO saying secret ballots were “anti-worker”? Or his complaint that a revote every few years was a burden because unions would have to “spend all of their time and resources counting votes”? Actually you didn’t hear Richard Trumka, president of the union, say that. However, union-funded, self-declared communists are making those claims without AFL-CIO leaders having to put their fingerprints on the message.
Intellectually, it makes no sense that the ERA is taking flak from the far left. It’s a pro-employee law that union households strongly support, including those in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio.
The ERA’s democratizing of the workplace through guaranteed and regular secret ballot elections would pressure union officials to rethink engaging personal whims that include golf memberships, fancy hotel stays and other perks with dues money. Ever played the Black Lake Golf Club owned by the United Auto Workers? Most UAW workers haven’t had a tee time there, either. But their monthly dues have been used for years to prop up the money-losing green space. Maybe President Trump could buy the course and make it work.
The annual take of nongovernment unions is conservatively estimated to be in excess of $8 billion. Every year. What do you do with that kind of money? You think you need that much cash to sell unionization, negotiate contracts or handle grievances? A scheduled representation revote for members with no strings attached should be made available. It’s an embarrassingly easy concept to endorse. If it works for Congress it should be extended to employees.
Exit polls show 35-40 percent of union members vote for Republicans. These conservative voters are also dues-paying members. What they didn’t know until now is that the unions have skimmed more than a billion dollars from monthly dues to fund the union’s favorite left-wing political groups. Many Republican union members would not have agreed to fund these if asked for permission. When polled, most want this practice stopped.
So why is it difficult to pass the ERA? We are about to find out. Last year 170 senators and representatives co-sponsored the legislation. Those who took a pass often used the excuse that it was an empty gesture given the expected veto of President Obama. The expectation for support is much greater today.
In 1935 unions were given broad legal rights to attack companies and employees. Predictably, many were irresponsible with their power. Twelve years later, they were reined in by a bipartisan TaftHartley Act. Another 12 years later then-Sen. John F. Kennedy and a bipartisan vote in Congress took on union leaders who were stealing from pension and health care plans. The question today is will the strong bipartisan support of the ERA by the American public be reflected by another bipartisan vote of our representatives?
The ERA does not restrict unionization, collective bargaining or any particular contract provisions. There is no way this pro-employee bill can be considered “anti-union” unless you’re spinning for the entrenched leadership.
However, that is how union bosses — through the advocacy organizations they fund — describe it. They say it “would strip workers of many rights” because it would require an absolute majority of employees voting for the union as the necessary quorum for certification. But when you are seeking to change the status quo in a workplace from what every employee accepted when hired, you should need a real majority to change it. If the unions can’t get at least 50 percent of those affected to show up to vote for change, it’s probably not a popular idea.
This sock puppet engagement from union surrogates is good news. They have decided the attraction of greater workplace democracy can no longer be ignored. And the leaders are obviously willing to take messengers from the bottom of the rhetorical barrel as a tradeoff for not being personally accused of screwing their own members.
Congress needs to send President Trump this most important addition to personal freedom. It will give the administration the legislative victory it needs, reinvigorating the vitality of the American workplace and providing the freedom from exploitation that most union employees support. It is the moral high ground that Mr. Trump promised to occupy.
• Richard Berman is the president of Berman and Company, a public relations firm in Washington, D.C.
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