An article in today’s New York Times highlights a study by Cornell University which finds Antiunion Tactics Are Becoming More Common.
Below is the latest from Washington:

Senator Tom Harkin is now encouraging other Senators such as Specter, Caper, Pryor, and Feinstein to consider other proposals. Among them are the concepts of “quickie elections”, “mail-in voting”, “union access”, and “baseball-style arbitration.”

Quickie elections would preserve the use of the secret ballot process, but on a compressed time frame which would put the employer at a disadvantage in communicating their message to employees, even though unions will have had weeks and months to communicate to employees during the drive to get cards signed. Quickie elections will thus deny employees the ability to make a fully informed decision.
Mail-in voting would have workers send in their ballots by mail. However, because unions are legally permitted to visit workers’ homes, they could pressure workers to sign and mail the ballots in front of them, taking away any private vote. In addition, such organizing activity could be conducted without the employer ever knowing that a union campaign was going on.

Union access provisions would require employers who call meetings with their employees to discuss unionization to give unions equal access to their employees, on company time and on company premises. Unions already enjoy the opportunity to meet with employees in a wide array of locations, including their homes (employers must provide the unions with employees’ addresses) in ways that the employer is prohibited. Unions are also allowed to make any promises and comments they wish, while employers are restricted in what they can say. Finally, employees who are sympathetic to the union are allowed to approach employees in the workplace and express their support for having a union. Expanding union access is not only unnecessary; it would be disruptive to business operations and expose workers to harassment.

Baseball-style arbitration refers to a form of binding arbitration used to settle contract disputes in baseball. Both sides present their best offers and the arbitrator picks one or the other. This process encourages both sides to present proposals that are most likely to be picked, rather than including provisions which have no chance being accepted. However, arbitration in professional baseball is mutually agreed to by contract; this proposal would use the force of federal law to require businesses to submit to government arbitration. Even if forced arbitration is imposed only when there appears to be “bad-faith bargaining” by an employer, it’s expected that the new National Labor Relations Board will side with the unions in finding such “bad faith” in order to trigger forced arbitration of first contracts. This undermines the fundamental concept of collective bargaining and the ability of employers and employees to have a hand in shaping the contract under which they will operate.

Another provision being talked about would create a two-sided card whereby workers could express a preference to have a union either through the card check process or by secret ballot election. This approach assumes that the employee wants a union-it will disenfranchise employees who do not want a union at all. It would also provide just as much opportunity for union organizers to pressure employees into signing cards as the currently proposed card check organizing scheme, and union organizers could ignore those cards calling for a secret ballot until they got the requisite number to be recognized through the card check process.

Here is the bottom line: unions and their congressional allies are trying to cobble together an alternative to the Card Check bill that could get past the 60-vote hurdle in the Senate - but so far, the proposals on the table are just as harmful to workers and employers. While we do not know when a new bill will be introduced, there are reports it could happen in the coming weeks. Now is the ideal time to make sure your Senators know of your strong opposition to so-called “compromise” proposals such as these. With our economy hanging in the balance, now is not the time to compromise on workers’ rights or jobs.