Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Mitt Romney on card check


Cautionary tale of card check
Mitt Romney

In 2006, my last year as governor of Massachusetts, I vetoed a card-check bill that allowed public workers to organize if a majority signed union authorization cards as opposed to casting a traditional secret ballot. The veto was a gain for the rights of employees and employers to a fair election, but the victory was short-lived.

After I left office, organized labor had another run at replacing the secret ballot with a card check. With the support of Democrats in the legislature, that same bill I had vetoed was passed again in 2007 - and my Democratic successor signed it into law. What happened next is a cautionary tale for Congress as it moves toward a vote on national card-check legislation.

By tilting the playing field in favor of unions, card check not only robs workers of a secret ballot, it deprives management of the right to express its point of view. It will dramatically change the workplace as we know it, just as it's beginning to do for charter schools in Massachusetts. Small businesses will have to hire labor lawyers and follow burdensome new rules. If the parties can't agree on a contract, mandatory arbitration follows and employers that don't yield to union demands will have contracts foisted on them.

All of this will raise costs, leading to more unemployment. The Labor Department reported that unemployment in February rose to 8.1 percent as American employers cut another 651,000 jobs. Unions are supposed to serve the interests of working people, yet in this case more power for the unions would help destroy many thousands of jobs throughout the economy.

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