New Report Debunks Rationale For Card Check

With its partners at the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, MSCI has long opposed “card check,” a policy that involves workers “voting” by signing or refusing to sign union authorization cards in front of union organizers and co-workers. Card check would replace secret ballot elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

MSCI and other advocates believe this change unnecessarily invites intimidation and fraud in the union voting process.

Functionally, card check also would eliminate the right of employees to vote in many NLRB secret ballot elections.

Still, policymakers in both the U.S. executive and legislative branches continue to propose card check, and card check supporters argue businesses must recognize labor unions created through the card check process. Indeed Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB general counsel, recently put forth the theory that said existing law requires card check union recognition.

To address those efforts, last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report that debunks Abruzzo’s claim. The U.S. Chamber report concludes:

• Card check has been found by courts and the NLRB itself to be inherently inferior to secret ballot elections, and Congress has rejected every attempt to require card check recognition.
• Requiring card check recognition would fundamentally undermine the cornerstone of U.S. labor law, which is the right of employees to make their own decisions regarding union representation without any type of restraint or coercion.
• There is no legitimate basis for concluding that the interests of employees can be advanced by dispensing with NLRB-conducted elections and substituting a new card check union recognition requirement.

Chamber Senior Vice President for Employment Policy Glenn Spencer concluded, “This move by the General Counsel to force card check organizing on workers and employers represents a radical overreach and misunderstanding of the law.”