EDITORIAL: 'Card check' red herring

At my company it's real simple, if you want to unionize my business, be prepared to buy my assets after I close the doors. I will not employ union workers, period. I will shut down and start over as another entity before I give in to a bunch of union thugs. My employees are aware of this so the choice is simple, be non-union and employed, or unionized and unemployed.

Okay, I'm confused. Secret Ballot is a way for businesses to "browbeat workers". "Card Check" will fix the economy. I guess I should start doing some heavy drugs, because that is the only way I will be able to understand that (lack of) logic.

Obama and the Democrats have got a lot of choices to make which could make or break this country for good. Card checks is one of them. Do people want a law on the books making it easier to organize a union, or do they want a job? We are on life support, and I fear our leaders are going to pull the plug out of pure ideological ignorance and wishful thinking. http://timetorevoltamerica.blogspot.com

An issue with the current election procedure, which Republicans in recent years have tried unsuccessfully to make mandatory for certification, e.g., the Norwood Bill, is that the body of administrative regulations, court decisions, and even some NLRB rulings, which frame the context of the election, end up producing what some scholars regard as a coercive environment where the employers are the de facto coercers. Richard Freeman and Joel Rogers have produce research which leads them to believe that there is a group of low wage workers of substantial size who would like unionization and collective bargaining, but whose freedom of association takes a back seat to employers' property rights, which ride in the front seat along with the isolated individual worker's right not to be coerced by his fellow workers. The policy question is how do you structure the situation so that the original Wagner Act's objective of a truly free and un-coerced choice by the workers is realized, and freedom of association, as well as property rights, is given adequate attention? Although, like most Americans, I like the idea of the election so that workers are not coerced by organizers and their work mates, I also think adequate attention is not given to those elements of the current election context which impede truly free choice on the part of workers who desire organization. I hope these remarks are somewhat coherent.

Come all you union bashers talking gloom and doom. Your fears are unfounded. Just look at how well the UAW shops, GM, Ford and Chrysler are making out. If the heavily unionozed US auto companes are not proof of how well card-check can fix the economy then you won't accept any proof at all.

BostonFrank? The overly academic response makes me wonder if it is "him", the most loathsome member of Congress.... It would also be typical of that fat loser to prioritize a small, "disenfranchised" minority over the best interests of the wide middle class. As if you are somehow "doing good" by pandering to the lowest common denominator. Whatever largely imagined "coercion" is "at issue" here is the real red herring. This is really about the unions, Mr. Frank et al, and their desire to move the USA towards socialism and away from our current version of capitalism. "Card check" my ass. Frank, Samuel, you go to hell..... sUb, NYC

sub, NYC You're wide of the mark. I'm from Boston not Newton, and I haven't voted for a Democrat in a national election since Governor Casey of Pennsylvania wasn't allowed to speak at the 1992 National Convention. But, I do believe in free association, and I'm persuaded that the technicalities of the current NLRB election procedure impede free association to a substantial degree. Best wishes.

Free is free. Why are the unions afraid of a free secret ballot? Because many workers are aware of the corruption fostered by the forced payment of dues. I was forced to pay dues in a job ruled by the CSEA. I would protest and for several years got my dues refunded. Then so many were protesting that the union sent it to an arbitrator. They would then only refund the "political" spending, nothing spent by the union bosses on high living.