A typical angle against unions

When Pat McIlheran writes about unions, you know he'll be bringing the goods. An unabashed union hater, the guy typically finds some fairly clever way to twist an old tired criticism of unions around to make it sound like a new and thus more legitimate criticism of organized labor. His column in today's Journal Sentinel is just such an article.

He states that the new Employee Free Choice Act, given a recent shot in the arm by senator Arlen Specter's defection to the Democats, favors dishonest union organizing over honest union organizers.

A bill before Congress would overturn [ the practice of waiting six weeks and having a secret ballot to install a union] - dictating instead that, once a union collects signatures from half a workplace's employees, the union is installed without an election.
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This makes problems, says Wathen, for honest union organizers. Their careers hinge on how well they make the sale. There are all kinds of ways to bring in signatures. Take, for instance, the union-sponsored pizza party. You show up for the pizza, you sign the sign-in sheet, you don't flip it over to read the disclaimer on the back reading, "I hereby authorize the union to represent me for the purposes of collective bargaining."

This is bunk. It's just like the notion of unionized labor as a reinforcer of lazy job habits (with no motivation to always be doing better, workers get soft and slowly slide into a pattern of mailing it in because their wages and working conditions are protected by the negotiated contract). There are always examples of people doing things the right way or the wrong way, unions don't make this go away. Instead they protect the wages and working conditions of employees who would otherwise be vulnerable to the whims of management. Making this easier only hold management's feet to the fire. Not a bad thing if you ask me.