Letter: Card-check bill would restore economy
To the editor:
The wrecking crew you support stands with no shame in the ruins of our economy. These free marketeers 30-year effort to extinguish small business and democracy now requires them to sterilize the soil that produced the genius that is America. The Employee Free Choice Act, as written, is the only way to restore that sacred ground to productivity.
Only through EFCA's blueprint for workplace justice, freedom of association, and freedom to create democratic organizations — unions — can we begin to restore the ability of all workers to contract with whomever they choose, free from employer dominated elections. The secret ballot is not on the table here. That is the only way that union business is done. The real debate is hidden: it is between dictator and democrat, with the dictator demanding entry to the caucus.
The employer-dominated election, the primary election that today's labor law describes allows only one side (guess which one) to campaign to coerce and to hire professional bullies. Today's employer dominated election allows the dictator to ignore card check as well as the secret ballot election that is the heart of American democracy. EFCA will do away with the employer's option to make election rules, ignore election results, to fire without penalty, and to refuse to contract with democratically elected, secret ballot selected representatives chosen by employees without employer harassment.
Our economy has stopped not for lack of profit. That is safely stored away. It is stopped not for lack of productivity. That part of the bargain has been kept by the American worker, the most productive in the world. Our economy is stopped because the demand for goods, also called spending money, what almost all of us call wages, has been strangled by perverse labor law that eliminates the ability of the private sector worker to contract for their labor.
We must restore democracy to the workplace. We must eliminate employer-dominated "elections." We must restore fairly contracted wages, family supporting income and benefits that support our health and retirement. Let's put real income in citizens' pockets, write contracts that build a future for everyone and the genius that is America will do the rest. American genius expressed through EFCA will restore the rewards that American productivity has earned.
Steve Falvey
Saugus
The wrecking crew you support stands with no shame in the ruins of our economy. These free marketeers 30-year effort to extinguish small business and democracy now requires them to sterilize the soil that produced the genius that is America. The Employee Free Choice Act, as written, is the only way to restore that sacred ground to productivity.
Only through EFCA's blueprint for workplace justice, freedom of association, and freedom to create democratic organizations — unions — can we begin to restore the ability of all workers to contract with whomever they choose, free from employer dominated elections. The secret ballot is not on the table here. That is the only way that union business is done. The real debate is hidden: it is between dictator and democrat, with the dictator demanding entry to the caucus.
The employer-dominated election, the primary election that today's labor law describes allows only one side (guess which one) to campaign to coerce and to hire professional bullies. Today's employer dominated election allows the dictator to ignore card check as well as the secret ballot election that is the heart of American democracy. EFCA will do away with the employer's option to make election rules, ignore election results, to fire without penalty, and to refuse to contract with democratically elected, secret ballot selected representatives chosen by employees without employer harassment.
Our economy has stopped not for lack of profit. That is safely stored away. It is stopped not for lack of productivity. That part of the bargain has been kept by the American worker, the most productive in the world. Our economy is stopped because the demand for goods, also called spending money, what almost all of us call wages, has been strangled by perverse labor law that eliminates the ability of the private sector worker to contract for their labor.
We must restore democracy to the workplace. We must eliminate employer-dominated "elections." We must restore fairly contracted wages, family supporting income and benefits that support our health and retirement. Let's put real income in citizens' pockets, write contracts that build a future for everyone and the genius that is America will do the rest. American genius expressed through EFCA will restore the rewards that American productivity has earned.
Steve Falvey
Saugus