NRO on EFCA’s Binding Arbitration Provision

Today’s National Review Online editorial looks at the so-called Employee Free Choice Act’s arbitration provision, which would subject newly unionized companies to having a contract imposed on them by a federally appointed arbitrator.

The worst provision — worse, in fact, than the card-check gambit itself — would allow the National Labor Relations Board to impose contracts on businesses that cannot come to an agreement with a union. If a union enters the picture and the owners of a business are unable to negotiate a satisfactory contract, then the NLRB is empowered to impose “binding arbitration,” meaning that the government will write the contract and force the firm to abide by its terms. This amounts to extortion.

EFCA’s card check provision, which would allow unions to circumvent secret ballots in organizing elections, met considerable public opposition. But organized labor is not giving up on binding arbitration, which would allow unions bosses to corral more companies into paying into some severely underfunded pension funds.

For more on EFCA’s binding arbitration provision, see here and here.