Employers of all sizes, representing all sectors of the economy, are concerned about Card Check for a number of reasons.
How are constructive employer/employee relationships built?
Card Check could undermine constructive employer-employee relationships where they exist and replace those relationships with a model that will encourage both sides to make extreme demands in the collective bargaining process, knowing that a compromise will be somewhere in between.
Where good employer-union contracts exist today, they are the products of many months of negotiations, both sides having had a great deal of input to the process. Card Check's provision for mandatory, binding federal arbitration after just 90 days of negotiation and 30 days of mediation between employer and union will have the practical effect of undermining the obligation to bargain in good faith that is the key to the collective bargaining process. Put another way, Card Check would reduce the incentives to negotiate in good faith.
Where the employer-employee relations are not productive today, there may well be a place for unionization. The current union-organizing process supports this effectively. (Fact or Fiction link)
No chance to present the company's side of the issue
The current union organizing process includes an educational period, in which both the employer and the union can communicate directly with workers and discuss the pros and cons of union representation.
Card Check would effectively eliminate the education and discussion period because the union could be collecting signed authorization cards without the employer's knowledge or ability to communicate with its employees on the issues.
Under Card Check, it's entirely possible for a union to collect signed authorization cards from a majority of employees without the employer (not to mention many of the employees) even knowing the union organizing campaign was under way.
Increased fines and penalties – for employers, but not for unions
Card Check would provide for substantial increases in the existing penalties that can be levied against employers during union organizing campaigns – tripling them in some instances. However, Card Check contains no provisions for increased penalties on unions that may be guilty of similar unfair labor practices during an organizing campaign. Card check would create a double standard.
And, while Card Check would allow unions to eliminate the secret ballot process when it comes to bringing in a union, it would require a secret ballot election in the event that workers decide they want to get rid of a union. Some people have described this contradiction as creating a door you easily can push open to get inside, but there is no handle on the door to get out if you decide you don't like what you find inside.
A threat to competitiveness, putting jobs at risk
With Card Check's provisions for mandatory, binding arbitration, a government-appointed arbitrator who may know little or nothing about a particular company's operations . . . the industry it's a part of . . . and/or the competitive challenges the company faces in the marketplace … could impose non-negotiable contract terms (including wages, benefits and work rules) on the employer and the employees – terms that could not easily be changed for two years.
Businesses would lose the flexibility they need to be able to respond to competitive pressures or other changes in the business environment.
This provision of Card Check would greatly undermine a company's ability to effectively control its operations – and, ultimately, both undermine its competitive position in a global economy and reduce its incentives for creating new jobs and protecting existing jobs
CLICK HERE to learn about the impact Card Check will have on the economy.