Sen. Arlen Specter's
recent announcement that he will not vote for cloture on card check
essentially assures that the Republican minority can block this
legislation from ever reaching the Senate floor for a
vote.
While that may have caused a sigh of relief amongst many in
the business community, it's highly unlikely the Employee Free
Choice Act will go quietly into the night.
As
the Wall
Street Journal recently noted:
In theory, his decision to
join his 40 GOP colleagues in a filibuster kills the bill. In
reality, the business community just moved into a far more
dangerous phase. Big Labor spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama
and other Democrats and get card check; it won't give
up...
All of which explains why, in
the past weeks, the new talking point is "compromise." The union
goal is to gin up support for a watered-down version of "card
check," one that nervous Senate Democrats such as Arkansas's
Blanche Lincoln or Colorado's Michael Bennet (both up for election)
-- as well as a Republican or two -- would feel comfortable putting
on the floor for debate. Once the unions fly past a filibuster,
they could then "fix" the bill back to the way they like
it.
To make this strategy work,
the unions need some in the business community to provide political
cover to Senate supporters. Democrats took their first stab at this
late last week, when news leaked that the CEOs of three companies
-- Whole Foods, Starbucks and Costco -- were breaking with the rest
of the business world to support some sort of compromise, although
the details were vague.
To
paraphrase our friend William Shakespeare, coercion by any other
name would still smell as sweet.
Much
has been made about the anti-democratic nature of the bill, but in
truth the bill's fundamental flaw is that is exposes countless
industries to forces that will make them less competitive, less
innovative, and less efficient.
Want
proof? Simply look at the most heavily unionized segments today,
all bastions
of innovation and efficiency: auto companies, the airlines,
education, and the federal government. If not for taxpayer support,
each of these would cease to exist. Just ask
Rick Wagoner.
It's
no coincidence that while Detroit automakers find themselves deep
in the red, foreign-based manufacturers with plants in right to
work states continue
to thrive. Not surprising since job growth and GDP output in
right to work states has far outpaced states with a more
heavily unionized workforce.
In
fact, recent
analysis shows that "for every 3 percentage points gained in
union membership through card checks and mandatory arbitration, the
following year's unemployment rate is predicted to increase by 1
percentage point and job creation is predicted to fall by around
1.5 million jobs."
Card check all but guarantees
a sharp increase in the cost of labor which will ultimately be
passed on to the consumer. If you think steak is
expensive, wait until you see the price of a cheeseburger with the
union label.
Gone are the days of sweat
shops and company stores, when clamoring masses banded together to
combat truly exploitative business practices . No, let's call card
check what it really is: a top-down power grab with a rosy
title.
"We
will pass the Employee Free Choice Act," President Obama told
more than 100 top labor officials in a closed-door meeting."
Take him at his word.