Unions don’t twist arms

Your Jan. 29 editorial’s inaccuracies start with the name of the bill (it’s the Employee Free Choice Act); continue with the falsehood that it would take away secret ballot elections (the act would allow employees – as opposed to the boss – to choose whether they want a “secret ballot” election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board or if they want to form a union by signing cards); and ignore the fact that the NLRB documents thousands of corporate acts of union-related intimidation, harassment and firing every year in this country.

Compare that to a total of fewer than 50 documented NLRB decisions finding union misconduct or coercion in the 70-year existence of the National Labor Relations Act.

Union organizers have been asking people to sign these cards for 70 years, and there just isn’t any evidence that unions bully people into signing them, but there are reams of evidence that workers are illegally fired and disciplined every day in this country by their bosses, simply because they support unionization. The idea that union thugs are going to start forcing people to sign cards – an act that would still be illegal under the Employee Free Choice Act – is an absurd stereotype not based on fact.

And so is this editorial.

David Groves

Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO

Seattle