Earlier this week, the soon-to-be president of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, vowed retaliation against members of Congress who failed to adequately support labor’s cause, including passage of the anti-democratic Employee Free Choice Act. A labor movement that “punishes its enemies” was his term.

Now, Trumka is attacking the reputation of the left-wing standard bearer and labor ally, George McGovern.

From US News:

Ever since 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern hit the Employee Free Choice Act, or card check, in an ad earlier this year, Big Labor has been fuming. This week, it let off some steam. In a breakfast media roundtable, the likely new president of the AFL-CIO struck back. Richard Trumka, who’s expected to be elected next week to replace outgoing boss John Sweeney, slammed McGovern as a foe of workers. “You know poor George got paid to do an ad. Now he ran as an antiwar candidate, and there have been three or four wars since he left the playing field that he had nothing to say about. And then he comes back on the playing field to make war against the workers. We found that very ironic,” Trumka said to some gasps in the room of reporters.

“Make war against the workers…” Really ugly rhetoric, especially when you consider McGovern’s heroism in a real war, WWII.

Leadership sets a tone for an entire organization, so you can imagine the message Trumka is sending to organizers approaching recalcitrant employees, reluctant to join a union.

From Jane Hamsher, the drum majorette of the marching left, at the Huffington Post, “Feinstein, Specter Compromises Pave the Way for Passage of Employee Free Choice Act”:

George McGovern was recently dis-invited from the Progressive Magazine’s 100th anniversary event because of his outspoken opposition to the bill on behalf of his good friend Rick Berman.  If McGovern is interested in reclaiming his reputation among progressives as something more than the pawn of a right wing astroturfing scumbag, he now has the opportunity to acknowledge that these compromises would satisfy his concerns.

Not countenanced: The possibility that McGovern reached his opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act through reason, principle, and personal experience as a business owner, as described in his Wall Street Journal op-ed, “The ‘Free Choice’ Act Is Anything But.”

In any case, the Progressive Magazine is now shunning him as a deviationist. Better tear down those photos of George Meany, too.

Elsewhere among the Internet drum and fife corps is this report from the AFL-CIO Blog, “Netroots Nation Salon: The Fight for Employee Free Choice, Online and Off.” Stewart Acuff claims, “You play the game all the way through. This is a dynamic process, and we’re at the 3-yard line—you can’t just walk off the field now.”

Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. In any case, these entries always read like propaganda from the party line. No creative thinking, admission of fault, or engagement with the issues — just rhetoric to march to.

UPDATE (8:15 a.m.): Now that we do some more reading, other accounts have McGovern withdrawing himself, siting a scheduling conflict. The Progressive Magazine’s 100th anniversary International was held in Madison, Wisc., at the start of the month.

South Dakota’s Senator George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, has drawn great attention as a liberal Democrat who objects strenuously to the attack on privacy and freedom of association represented by the “card check” provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act. (See this Wall Street Journal column from August 2008.)

In today’s Journal, he analyzes and rejects the binding arbitration language, as well. From “The ‘Free Choice’ Act Is Anything But“:

In a contract negotiation, each party typically perceives the other as too demanding. But no one loses their right to contract willingly or suffers being forced to agree to anything. Employees can strike if they feel that they have been dealt with unfairly, but it is a costly option. Employers are free to reject labor demands they find to be too difficult to accept, but running a business without experienced employees is itself difficult. Both sides have an incentive to press their demands, but they also have compelling reasons not to press their demands too far. EFCA would disrupt that balance by enabling government-appointed lawyers to decide what they believe is fair or reasonable.

A federally appointed arbitrator cannot be expected to understand the nuances specific to each business dispute, the competitive market position of the business, or the plethora of other factors unique to each case. Yet fundamental decisions on wages and benefit costs, rules for promotions, or even rules for exiting an unprofitable line of business could fall to federal arbitrators under EFCA.

Many labor contracts can run over 100 pages with their requirements of each party. Compulsory arbitration is, in one sense, government dictating to employees what they will win or lose in the deal, with no opportunity to approve the “agreement.” Why should employees pay union dues to get such a contract?

Organized labor regards the right of the worker to withhold his labor as almost sacred, a core principle they fought to defend and write into law. And now labor’s leaders want to abandon that principle under the guise of “free choice.”

It’s hard to believe that the rank and file really want to surrender their rights just because labor bosses tell them to.

UPDATE (10:50 a.m.): More from Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute, former chief economist at the Department of Labor, “After Card Check, Don’t Forget Binding Arbitration.”

With just a few lines of legislative language, Congress would revoke for newly-organized firms the principle of free collective bargaining—that employers and unions may walk away from a contract they find unsatisfactory.

Yesterday, Former Democratic Presidential Candidate, Senator and brave World War II B-24 pilot, George McGovern was interviewed on Fox News to discuss the card check bill. Senator McGovern defended the current secret ballot process for deciding labor union representation, but insisted that doing away with this process (as is the case under a card check scheme) is simply not the American way. An excerpt of the interview is below:

JON SCOTT (Fox News): Barack Obama’s supports this plan. He is one of the co-sponsors of the bill. Have you spoken to him?

 

George McGovern: I support Barack Obama. everybody knows that. I have gone public about it. But when it comes time to vote, I do not want to have to do that by signing a card that someone hands me publicly where everyone would know what I did in terms of my vote. I want that to be in private and I think that workers should hang on to the private secret polling place which they are now guaranteed but would not be guaranteed under this so-called free choice system. It is not a free choice if you have somebody pressing you to sign a card if you do it without the privacy of the polling place.

Full transcript here.

In an e-mail, a reader shares cites personal experience to endorse skepticism that Mickey Kaus, a reform Democrat, shows toward the Employee Free Choice Act. From “Anti-Obama Boomerang?”

I’m an Obama supporter – voted for him [in] the primary, and plan to again in November – but I share your concern on this particular issue.

There’s a unionization campaign going on in my company, and the organizers from the local seem to be running the campaign as if card check already existing – knocking on doors, getting cards signed, and trying to use them as leverage to get management to agree to the union without an election. They don’t have the votes yet for an election, and they may be biding their time until card check is passed.

Co-workers who’ve had union reps show up unannounced at their doors (with cards in hand) were freaked out by it. When people get a first-hand taste of this, they don’t like it. I can’t believe that if the basic facts of this issue were made known that a majority of people would support it.

As we understand the law, those signatures card are valid of a year. Collect them in the summer and fall, get a bill passed and signed into law in February or March or, who knows, May Day. You could certainly do some marketing — or more likely, ominous threatening — with the theme of “one signature, many signatures,” or “He signed. We signed.” Something like that.  

The Rocky Mountain News takes a look today at the increasing prominence the card-check legislation is playing in U.S. Senate campaign in Colorado between Republican Bob Schaffer and Democrat Mark Udall, a story entitled, “Pro-union act becomes issue in Senate race.” Given the public’s overwhelming support for retaining secret ballots in the workplace, backing the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act seems a sure loser for any candidate.Recent polling by McLaughlin & Associates shows that two-thirds of voters in Colorado (68%) oppose the EFCA. And, despite being described as a “pro-union act,” the vast majority of union households implicitly reject the central provision of card check, the destruction of secret-ballot elections. According to the poll, 90 percent of union households agree that “Secret and private ballot elections are the cornerstone of democracy and should be kept for union elections.”

The Rocky Mountain News casts the issue as a partisan one, and it’s true Rep. Udall voted for the bill in the U.S. House. Organized labor placed incredible political pressure on House Democrats, in particular, saying basically, “Vote for it or suffer ignominy.” (A union picket’s standard cry: “Ignominy!”) But to NAM members, other employers and most voters, too, it’s hard to figure out why the issue should be partisan. Secret ballots are supported by good Democrats like George McGovern, right?

Former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern is featured in a television ad scheduled to run during tonight’s TV debate between Senator Obama and Senator McCain. The topic? The undemocratic Employee Free Choice Act, which McGovern strenuously opposes.

Take a look.

Amanda Carpenter at Townhall reports on the ad sponsored by the Employee Freedom Action Committee, quoting Senator McGovern:

I’m concerned about a bill in Congress that would effectively eliminate an employee’s right to a private vote when deciding whether to join a union.

It’s hard to believe that any politician would agree to a law denying millions of employees the right to a private vote. I have always been a champion of labor unions. But I fear that today’s union leaders are turning their backs on democratic workplace elections. I’ve listened to all their arguments and reviewed the facts on both sides. Quite simply, this proposed law cannot be justified. Working families deserve a voice and a private vote.

What a splendid topic to pursue during tonight’s debate. Something along the lines of, “Senator Obama: You support the Employee Free Choice Act, and yet so notable a Democrat as George McGovern denounces the measure for destroying an employee’s private vote. Can you explain why employees should not be able to decide their membership in a union via a secret ballot?”

In today’s Wall Street Journal, an op-ed criticizing the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) by former South Dakota Senator George McGovern, a Democrat, “My Party Should Respect Secret Union Ballots“:

To my friends supporting EFCA I say this: We cannot be a party that strips working Americans of the right to a secret-ballot election. We are the party that has always defended the rights of the working class. To fail to ensure the right to vote free of intimidation and coercion from all sides would be a betrayal of what we have always championed.

Some of the most respected Democratic members of Congress — including Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, George Miller and Pete Stark of California, and Barney Frank of Massachusetts — have advised that workers in developing countries such as Mexico insist on the secret ballot when voting as to whether or not their workplaces should have a union. We should have no less for employees in our country.

I worry that there has been too little discussion about EFCA’s true ramifications, and I think much of the congressional support is based on a desire to give our friends among union leaders what they want. But part of being a good steward of democracy means telling our friends “no” when they press for a course that in the long run may weaken labor and disrupt a tried and trusted method for conducting honest elections.