I posted a bit about the anti-card check campaign yesterday, and Rich Yeselson e-mails in this follow-up:
Note one other thing you often hear about this issue--in fact, it's the theme of those clever commercials with that Sopranos actor in it. It's the idea that a union "goon" is going to intimidate workers into signing the cards basically by getting in their faces and saying, "Sign duh card."a) Facetiously, most union organizers today are 105 pound women with rings in their noses, rather than 265 pound men with brass knuckles on their hands.b) More importantly, intimidation as a technique for organizing is a stupendously moronic business model, even for the labor movement: After one year, any union can be "decertified" by a simple majority vote of its workers. A workforce that is coerced into joining a union is one that cannot wait to get rid of that union--decertification, under those circumstances is inevitable, and all the time and money that the union invested to organize the worksite is thrown away. Really dumb!!!c) Finally, who has more leverage with a given worker? This alleged "goon" who you can cast out of your life forever in a year's time--or a representative from the company who *signs your checks and thus is responsible for your livelihood? Not really a close a call....
