EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT SUPPORTERS' CONTEMPT FOR INDEPENDENT THOUGHT

Many of us with significant concerns about the ironically-titled "Employee Free Choice Act" have been saying for some time that the true aim of the Act is to artifically boost union support among private sector employees by denying them the right to make a fully informed choice. But the E.F.C.A.'s contempt for free speech and the notion that employees should have all the relevant facts and opinions before committing to a decision is not an invention of the bill's opponents. The Act's supporters themselves keep providing example after example. Jonathan Tasini, Executive Director of the pro-union advocacy group LRA wrote a piece at the Huffington Post, grumbling that all the Democrats in the Senate had not yet fallen into party-line lockstep on sponsorship of the bill:

I spoke to Jim Stowers, legislative aide for [Sen.] Lincoln [(D-AR)].

"She is in the process of listening to folks who have an opinion about the bill. She wants to make sure her constituents have a chance to be heard. She wants to allow people who support the bill and those who oppose the bill to weigh in."

There was more of that obfuscating and non-responsive replies but I'll spare you.

In Mr. Tasini's all-for-the-union-or-nothing view, "listening to folks who have an opinion" equals "obfuscating," and "allowing [both sides of a question] to weigh in" is "non-responsive," when asked for a simple knee-jerk statement of union support. If you don't get on board right away, early, without careful contemplation and without taking the time to consider opposing viewpoints, you are "holding out," simply "anti-union," a traitor to the cause.

Applying that type of pressure on Senators to stop thinking for themselves, one wonders what Mr. Tasini would be like as a professional union organizer, waving an authorization card in the face of an employee and demanding immediate signature.

Hat tip: efcaupdates.com