THE EMPLOYEE FREE CHOICE ACT WILL BE AN ANTI FREE SPEECH ACT

By passing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) and imposing card checks on Corporate America, the Democrats will – in effect – eliminate the free speech of workers. Since 1935, when the National Labor Relations Act was passed and signed into law, workers were assured that their opinions about unionization would be protected. During secret ballot elections in which employees could vote their preference about unionization, the opinions of workers would be kept private. Under the EFCA, however, private opinions will no longer be private. A worker’s colleagues and union organizers will readily know if that worker is in favor of unionization. Such a worker will no doubt be pressured and perhaps coerced into signing a card check authorizing union representation.

As two former Justice Department lawyers, David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey, who served under President Reagan and President George H. W. Bush, wrote in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial: "Three of the Constitution's Framers -- James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay -- wrote the Federalist Papers supporting its ratification under the anonymous pen name Publius." If they had announced their identities, British authorities would have arrested them for sedition.

The authors further wrote: "When courts have upheld restrictions on anonymous speech, they have required that such provisions be narrowly tailored to serve an overriding governmental interest." There is, obviously, no government interest in denying the protection of anonymity to workers.

Imagine what would happen to American democracy if we all had to state our votes in public, and our private speech was curtailed. We would all become victims of coercive politics. Strong arm tactics would be the order (or disorder) of the day.

This is another reason why the Employee Free Choice Act should not become the law of the land.