Card Check: "The Bill That keeps on Taking from America's Workers," Enzi Says

Washington, D.C. – Up to 600,000 American workers may lose their jobs next year if theDemocrat-sponsored Card Check bill becomes law, according to a study released today of themeasure’s potential impact on an already weakened economy, prompting U.S. Senator Mike Enzi (RWY)to label the bill “a gift to union bosses that keeps on taking from America’s workers.”

“If Congress passes the card check bill, America’s workers will lose their democratic rights inthe workplace, and 600,000 may also lose their jobs next year alone,” said Enzi, Ranking Member ofthe Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

“Taking away the fundamental right to a secret ballot was bad enough,” Enzi said. “AreDemocrats so indebted to union bosses that they’re willing to pay them back by sacrificing Americanjobs, even during a recession?”

Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar, an economist with the non-partisan firm LECG Consulting, todayreleased a study on a bill that Democrats are poised to introduce this Congress. The bill’s radicalprovisions would make it easier for union bosses to use intimidation and harassment to coerceAmerican workers into joining a union. It would strip away the fundamental right of workers to decidethrough a secret ballot election whether to form a union, and instead require workers to declarepublicly their preference by signing a card. Union leaders have claimed that the strong-armed tactics they could employ under card checkwould cause union membership to increase by 1.5 million each year for the next 10-15 years.

TheLayne-Farrar study projects that the unionization of 1.5 million existing jobs under the card check billwould cause 600,000 Americans to lose their jobs the following year. The study, which examines the economic toll inflicted in Canada since similar laws wereenacted, specifically concludes that every 3 percent increase in union membership through card checkwould lead to a 1 percent increase in the unemployment rate.

The full report, An Empirical Assessment of the Employee Free Choice Act: The EconomicImplications, is available here: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1353305.

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