Patriot Post, 5/4/2009 - GOVERNMENT: "The labor unions' drive for the full card check bill seems to have foundered. [Arlen] Specter enters a Democratic caucus where a half-dozen or more senators have made it clear, publicly or privately, that they will not vote for card check. ... But the unions may have a fallback position: Forget about the secret ballot, and try to pass a bill with mandatory federal arbitration. This might be easier to defend. Every American knows what the secret ballot is; few Americans know what mandatory arbitration means. Mandatory arbitration would be a major, massive change in American labor law. Currently, unions are free to strike, but employers are free to resist their demands as long as they want. The card check bill would require, after only 120 days of bargaining, a federal arbitrator to step in and impose a settlement. A centralized bureaucrat, not responsible to shareholders (or to union leaders), would determine wages, fringe benefits and working conditions. There would evidently be no appeal. No one knows exactly what this would mean in practice. But the negative consequences are easy to imagine. Arbitrators might very well impose terms and conditions similar to those in existing union-negotiated contracts. Those might include not only wages that would reduce a business' profits, but also generous fringe benefits and thousands of pages of detailed work rules. Private employers might be forced into funding union pension plans with their massive long-term liabilities. Detailed work rules would mean adversarial negotiations between company foremen and union shop stewards over even the most minor changes in work procedures. How would this affect the economy? We have a test case before us, highlighted by recent headlines, which gives us some answers: the auto industry." --columnist Michael Barone
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