SEIU’s California Fraud Provides Glimpse into World with EFCA
Wonder what life would be like under the Employee Free Choice Act? Look no further then California where the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) are competition to organize 10,000 health care workers. NUHW claims that the election where Fresno health care workers’ “elected” SEIU to represent them was riddled with fraud and harassment.
The Wall Street Journal reports that “SEIU representatives came to their (health care workers) house as many as five times a day, pressuring them to vote for the SEIU. In one instance, a woman said she was questioned about her legal status. Others were told they would lose wages and benefits if they voted for the NUHW.”
Carlos Martinez, who worked as an organizer for SEIU during the Fresno campaign, says that SEIU higher-ups told him to target immigrants, many of whom who spoke little English and were illiterate.
WSJ reports that, “Mr. Martinez says he was instructed by superiors to tell the workers that if they voted against the SEIU, they could lose their medical benefits, see their green cards or citizenship revoked and possibly be deported.”
In the dog eat dog world of union recruitment, it is apparent that Andy Stern’s organization, SEIU, will go to any length to increase its membership. Alas, this is nothing new. During union elections, organizers hunt down workers they suspect oppose unionization and bully them (like SEIU threatening to revoke green cards or cancel health care coverage) until they are singing union’s praises. This practice is reprehensible and already occurs under current labor laws. But that isn’t good enough for organized labor; they want an easier way to find out whom to harass, streamline the process if you will.
Enter the Employee Free Choice Act which looks to eliminate private ballot elections. With private elections a thing of the past, unions will be able to target dissenters more efficiently.
SEIU’s dubious activities were not limited to simple harassment of health care workers, they still managed to forge a few ballots-your more run-of-the-mill election fraud.
“A former SEIU organizer, said that he was encouraged "to pressure voters to change the ballot" and that on one occasion he himself changed a vote to SEIU's favor,” writes WSJ.
With union’s popularity declining, their road back to power is through harassment and intimidation-strategies made infinitely easier should EFCA become law- and exemplified in California’s recent election.
Side Note: AWF call’s for investigation into Andy Stern’s lobbying activities. Click here to read more.
Comments (3)
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Is there any hope of just getting EFCA off the table completely? I know that "Card-Check" is basically out of the picture, for now, but what about the other monstrosities in the legislation? We really need to not lose sight of how devasting this piece of garbage bill could be for American Busniesses.
>> Kyle L. November 17, 2009 17:03 am
There really is no hope of getting EFCA off the table completely, big labor is the biggest donor to the Democratic party. Card-check, in some bills, has been replaced with equally destructive snap elections. Snap elections allow unions to announce elections as soon as five days before a vote. This allows unions to get all their ducks in a row and then spring an election on employers who will have no time to rebut union propaganda. Binding arbitration, on some level, is in all proposed EFCA bills and mandates that a government arbitrator settle all contract disputes between employers and workers. There are plenty of other problems with EFCA, workplace access clause for example, that unions will never concede.
>> Jacob November 17, 2009 17:43 pm
Amen, Kyle. Forcing someone to join a union is wrong. Intimidation and bullying shouldn't be allowed. And Andy Stern, at the head of it all, is the man that visits the White House the most often. But he's 'not' a lobbyist.
>> Jacky November 17, 2009 17:59 pm
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