The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA)
– Here
is What Could
Happen
The following article from the law firm of
Constangy, Brooks & Smith, LLP
highlights what could happen if the Democrats get a
filibuster proof Senate:
“Speaking of the EFCA
(and Wal-Mart), we can get an inkling of what life under
the EFCA would be like by looking to our neighbors in
the North. Among other things, the EFCA would mandate
binding arbitration if the parties fail to reach a first
contract within 120 days. The Canadian province of
Quebec has a similar law, and an arbitrator there
recently imposed a collective bargaining agreement on a
Wal-Mart Canada Corporation store, making the employees
at that store the only Wal-Mart employees in North
America to have a union contract.
The three-year contract
is a result of binding arbitration conducted after
almost three years of legal delays and stalled
bargaining after certification of a local of the United
Food and Commercial Workers Union. The arbitration
awarded the union workers wage increases averaging 30
percent, with the lowest wage rate increasing from $7.99
to $10.85 per hour.”
Comment: Employers in the public
sector already know what can happen when an outside
person with little technical knowledge or experience
makes a decision that adversely affects a City budget.
They are often forced to raise taxes and/or hire
additional employees in order to get work completed
because of stringent work rules. In the private
sector, that is not as easy. General Motors and
Ford are prime examples of damaging union work rules and
costs that are not competitive. Arbitrator awards
have cost both companies untold millions in wages and
benefits, as well as cost the unions in terms of jobs
relocated outside the United States.
