While the legislature is in session, the National
Federation of Independent Business/California will be profiling anti-small
business bills and the adverse effect they would have on California’s job
creators. This is the fourth column of
the 2011 series.
Sometimes it seems like the Capitol is a lot like the movie
"Groundhog Day". The same bills keep
coming back year after year, like a nightmare from which you can’t awaken. This year is no different for small business
owners, as the threat of card check – the undemocratic formation of unions in
the workplace through bullying and intimidation – comes back to haunt them once
again in the form of Senate Bill 104 by Senate President Pro-tem Darrell
Steinberg.
Let’s point out the facts
surrounding the card check legislation in California. If signed into law,
it will diminish worker freedom. Currently a secret ballot election is
required for workers to decide to unionize. Under the card check plan, a worker
could be approached by a union representative and asked to sign a card in
support of unionization. The union rep now speaks for the worker. How easy is it for a worker to turn down a
supervisor or union rep?
The secret ballot is a
time-honored tradition developed to help keep elections fair and free of
intimidation. In fact, it was Governor Jerry Brown who signed the
original Agricultural Labor Relations Act in 1975 and was a major supporter of
the secret ballot election process, along with United Farm Workers founder
Cesar Chavez.
SB 104 would open the floodgates
to Tony Soprano-like intimidation and coercion. Small businesses would be
shackled with additional costs and interference by government bureaucrats,
which will result in increased unemployment. The most likely outcome is
that small businesses will have to shut their doors. That is why the
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has been such a strenuous
opponent of this terrible public policy that strips "mom and pop" businesses
and employees of their independence – there is no "free choice" about it.
We should just call a spade a
spade in this case – this is simply a power grab by unions to increase their
numbers (which, by the way, are slipping).
Workers and small businesses in California need to continue to stand up
to Big Labor and reject this job-killing, anti-worker, anti-small business
legislation. A national debate has occurred over this bad policy and Big
Labor lost. It is time that Governor Jerry Brown received that message as
well.