Senator Arlen Specter Is Ignorant Or Lying About Employee Free Choice Act - 04/17/09

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on April 16, 2009 - 10:04pm
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By Doug Cunningham

On the Employee Free Choice Act labor law reform Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is either ignorant or he’s lying when he says.

[Specter]: “I could not support it when it eliminated the secret ballot. If they get a fifty percent plus one the union is recognized and there is not the current procedure of having a secret ballot election."

Specter is dead wrong. The National Labor Relations Act says when 30 percent of workers file with the board, an election shall be called. When the workers decide to file. If the Employee Free Choice Act passes workers could still do that. What changes is that workers could choose instead to get 50 percent plus one to sign union cards and then the employer would be required by the law to respect the workers choice to form a union. Senator Arlen Specter is either ignorant or lying when he says this about the Employee Free Choice Act.

[Specter3]: “The choice act has an entirely new procedure where you collect cards."

Specter is dead wrong again. Union cards aren’t newly created by this reform. They’re used under current law – but only if the employer chooses to allow them. The Employee Free Choice lets workers choose to use union cards to organize unions.

It may be possible Specter isn’t lying OR ignorant here. Maybe he's just singing the tune paid for by more than $230,000 in campaign cash from the union busting law firm Blank Rome LLP.