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Better Anti-union Talking Points Needed

National Review's David Freddoso on a possible labor law compromise floated by Starbucks, Whole Foods and Costco:

The three companies' compromise bill rejects both of EFCA's most noxious elements--card check (or abolition of the guarantee of a secret ballot) and mandatory arbitration. What it does include is an assurance of greater access for unions to a firm's employees during a unionization election, and increased penalties for employers who break the rules. Their proposal would be much less harmful than EFCA, but at the same time it unnecessarily concedes the false premise that the reason for unions' decline is procedural rather than substantive--i.e., fewer workers feel the need to belong to them.

So Fredosso is sue that unions are declining because workers are much happier without collective bargaining. But, just to be sure, he wants companies to retain the right to fire union organizers, propagandize on company property without response, and otherwise cheat to defeat a union election without serious penalty.

--Jonathan Chait