Michael Fox over at Jottings By an Employment Lawyer has some great thoughts on the Employee Free Choice Act recently introduced into Congress, including these remarks:
I think the opponents of EFCA are making a mistake focusing so much on card check. How a union is formed is important, and my belief is that the secret ballot is far superior to card check. However, in my view the most radical change contained in EFCA is binding arbitration for the first contract. The current national policy, which as mentioned above, is that collective bargaining is the preferred way of organizing the workplace, also is founded on the principle that an employer while required to bargain in good faith, was never forced to concede or agree to any point. To “force” concessions, unions have the economic power to withhold their labor, strike. If EFCA is passed as introduced, for first contracts this would no longer be true. If agreement is not reached, a solution will be imposed, which will require an employer (and employees) to be bound for two years. It represents a total reversal of the current policy, and so far is getting relatively little attention. If that continues, what will happen is that a “compromise” will be reached that retains secret ballot elections (albeit it with major changes designed to make it easier for unions to organize) but keeping binding arbitration for first contract. That would mean that one of the underlying principles of our current system will have been changed, with little discussion or my guess, is little understanding that it is even happening.
More from this Fulbright & Jaworski article on EFCA:
Some have argued that this provision of EFCA would constitute an unconstitutional taking of an employer