¶ … professional HR standpoint on the Employee Free Choice Act for the consideration of a local U.S. representative. Message to Representative

This document contains the professional opinion of highly qualified Human Resource professionals on the proposed Employee Free Choice Act. The group has thoroughly gone through the proposal, evaluating its strengths and weaknesses before preparing this document. This has been done keeping in mind that theirs is a crucial role in the acceptance or rejection of the said act.

Our position

It is the belief of this organization that employees can be able to progress when they unite in the quest to achieve improved remuneration from their employers. Given the increase in the prices of goods and services such as the price of food items, household goods and increased interest rates among others. All this has placed an increased burden on many workers without their wages being increased to meet these additional costs. While workers' salaries have remained the same, those of top executives have been going up. Thus, the Employee Free Choice Act comes as a tool to correct this position. It looks to get rid of barriers that are one sided, which work against unions representing employees and gaining ground for them through collectively bargaining for their rights. Through this act, workers have a chance to improve their work conditions and increase compensation (The Employee Free Choice Act, n. d.). Workers, through this act, will have the freedom to choose, which union to join as well as the opportunity to bargain as a group for better pay. Therefore, as economic gains are made by their employers as well as the economy, they too will be in a position to benefit.

This act is one that has the full support of unions as it seeks to improve on the earlier National Labor Relations Act. The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) will make it easier for employees to become members of unions, organize themselves into a union and make a contribution to the activities of labor organizations. It will also bring in the aspect of punitive actions against employers who act unfairly towards workers who are involved in union activities. It is a pro-labor act introduced in 2009 and it has three things that it introduces:

Where half of the workers in an organization sign with a certain union asking that that union represent them, this is the union that will be recognized by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The NLRB will then require that this union, through its certification, is the one that has the mandate for collective bargaining with the leadership of the company.

In EFCA, the union, which is certified by the NLRB, designating it the exclusive union for the workers of that organization, may after ten days of this certification, negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with the executive of the organisation. Management will be required to have a sitting with the union for this purpose when the union requests for it. Should the union and the management be unable to reach an agreement after three months (ninety days), the federal mediation may be sought. Though, this agreement may be reached after arbitration.

Where an employee is terminated due to their stand for union representation and the NLRB finds the employer guilty of this, the employee is entitled to three times their salary. The employer may also be fined for this act when deemed to have been done knowingly. Fines for such violations of statute may be up to $20,000.

The law that is in force currently has been seen by the HR professionals to be an impediment, in many cases, to the rights of workers. When there has been effort by workers to form unions, they have been subjected to victimizing tactics, such as intimidation, harassment and even termination from employment. Some workers face intimidation through constant threats from their supervisors and in 25% of the campaigns for the formation of unions in the private sector, workers involved have been fired (Employee Free Choice Act, n. d.). 44% of those who have been able to successfully organize unions to represent them have been denied contracts. Workers are therefore in a quandary as they have the right to form unions, but no protection from the retaliatory tactics of their employers.

Strengths of the Act

The Human Resource group stands for the adoption of this Act as the members feel that the workers should have the freedom to organize themselves into unions, which can...

They will be able to gain access to conditions of employment that are suitable, retirement plans that are valuable, a good standard of living through equitable pay and even coverage for their health. The workers who are members of unions earn higher pay than those who are not members (The Employee Free Choice Act, n.d.). The employees in unions also have more health coverage from their employers and pension plans that are guaranteed. Thus, this act will enable workers to negotiate for better pay and will also impose on employers penalties for not adhering to the set out guidelines. Thus, negotiations in good faith and within reasonable timelines are expected through EFCA.
"Card rules" when reinforced, will benefit the worker mainly by creating an avenue for the worker to join a union without fear of intimidation or loss of employment. The secret ballot will not come to an end with EFCA. This may still be an option where, for example, more than a third of employees want to be represented by a certain union. What will change is that the employees will have the mandate to call for the secret ballot rather than the management calling for it (The Employee Free Choice Act of 2009). When more than a half or 50% of employees have signed cards for a certain union, there will be no need for the secret ballot. The union chosen in this way will receive certification from the NLRB. This is a great strength in the EFCA, as under the current law, the employer can reject a majority selected union even where all employees have endorsed the union.

The Cons

We recognize that with advantages, there are inevitable disadvantages. There were many large companies as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that were against this Act, especially the companies whose workers were on hourly contracts (Chris, 2015). The argument forwarded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is that this act will compromise fairness and democracy and will reduce the capacity of employees to decide whether they should be represented by a union or not. They also state that the act will not bring reform, rather, it will restructure what they term to be "carefully crafted" laws, which have taken legislators many years to come up with.

There seem to be lower numbers of union members in America than they were before. It is estimated that only just above 11% of employees are in unions and the private company workers who are in unions account for only 6.7%. The workers who are members of unions have been found to be happier than those who are not. This is according to a study that was done by Patrick Flavin and Gregory Shufeldt, professors at universities in the U.S.

Some of the arguments that have been raised against this act are in reaction to the first contract mandatory disputes. They see these disputes working against the organization's competitiveness and creativity. The arbitration factor, according to opponents of this act, can have the unsavory consequence of locking out employees, so that they can exert pressure on unions to accept what the company offers before the timeline elapses for arbitration (Chris, 2015).

Through the EFCA, employees can join a union where their majority prefers to be, in that union. The current legislation gives employers the mandate to conduct a secret ballot and they can drag this out for a long time. The EFCA thus speeds up this process. This, however, is seen by opponents as denying the employee privacy as their employer, union and colleagues know which union they voted for. They do not see this as free choice, but a violation of privacy.

Why we Support this Act

This organization is of the opinion that the EFCA is a relevant and important act today. It will be a good response to the employer tactics of refusing unions permission to campaign in their premises while the employers carry out anti-union campaigns themselves (Human Rights Watch, The Employee Free Choice Act). Many times, employers will sabotage the efforts of employees to join a particular union. They will do this through aggressive campaigns against the union, violation of labor laws among other things. These employers act in full knowledge of their violations as they know that penalties will be small and it will take a long time before they are meted out. Also, under current law, the collective bargaining may be done in bad faith by the employers as the laws are not specific and strong enough to prevent this.

The EFCA will come as an answer to many of these…