I got a fair amount of hate mail from a recent column I wrote about efforts to replace secret-ballot union elections with a ?card check? system that looks like it was designed by Vladimir Putin. Well, at least I’m in good company, given what noted right-wing ideologue George McGovern wrote along similar lines the other day:

As a longtime friend of labor unions, I must raise my
voice against pending legislation I see as a disturbing and
undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or
labor.

The legislation is called the Employee Free Choice
Act, and I am sad to say it runs counter to ideals that were once at
the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the
unheard, EFCA risks silencing those who would speak.

The key provision of EFCA is a change in the mechanism
by which unions are formed and recognized. Instead of a private
election with a secret ballot overseen by an impartial federal board,
union organizers would simply need to gather signatures from more than
50% of the employees in a workplace or bargaining unit, a system known
as “card-check.” There are many documented cases where workers have
been pressured, harassed, tricked and intimidated into signing cards
that have led to mandatory payment of dues.

Under EFCA, workers could lose the freedom to express
their will in private, the right to make a decision without anyone
peering over their shoulder, free from fear of reprisal.

There’s also a good Steve Malanga piece on RCM today that forecasts little recovery in labor-union fortunes no matter what happens this November. A key passage:

[B]eyond the injustice to workers and the headache it will
certainly cause a few management teams, Obama?s support of card check
and other union friendly legislation will mostly accomplish one thing:
ensuring that he gets the maximum campaign effort out of organized
labor, which has pledged some $100 million to see him elected.

On the other hand, a more union-friendly attitude in Washington will
have little impact on the historical trends undercutting organized
labor in this country, because in most American workplaces these days,
unionization isn?t even an issue. A union movement which grew in
response to the industrial revolution and succeeded because laborers
were fighting for basic rights is simply no longer relevant to the vast
majority of today?s workers. And the huge chunk of their members? dues
that labor leaders now spend supporting Left-wing causes, ranging from
environmentalism to subsidized housing to anti-war efforts, has made
labor?s message less palatable even to employees in industries still
prone to unionization.

Faced with a flood of pro-union sentiment from Washington, most
workers will simply yawn and say, that?s change we can do without.