The Employee Free Choice Act wants to fix union laws that are not broken.

Don Berry of the Western Maine Labor Council recently claimed on the Sun Journal opinion page (Sept. 1) that the Employee Free Choice Act is needed to give workers more rights. I think he – like so many others embroiled in this debate – are confusing the good of Maine workers with the good of Maine unions.

The Employee Free Choice Act, better called card check, is needed by unions to increase their declining revenues and membership roles. However, it is a mistake to think the unionizing system is currently broken or the changes proposed by card check will benefit workers.

As executive director of the Maine Merchants Association, I am baffled as to how federal supervision of worker unionization hurts worker rights. How will eliminating the workers’ private ballot bring about more rights for workers? These two stances are counterintuitive; not much needs to be said except to stress that card check eliminates both of these important safeguards against undue Big Labor or business pressure.

Under current law, a 60-day window exists between when union cards are signed and an election is held. This period is critical for employees to hear from the business owner and the union about the pros and cons of having a union and to make a decision. The implication that Maine small businesses are overbearing and coercive on its employees could not be further from the truth. To the contrary, Maine’s businesses and employees have an excellent relationship working together and benefiting from one another.

While card check seeks to eliminate the 60-day window, this only means it would eliminate chances for businesses to speak with employees about the choice to unionize, while still allowing unions to approach employees at work, at home, and even on weekends. Under the current system, union elections are held, on average, within 39 days (not 60). This window is supervised by the National Labor Relations Board to prevent inappropriate behavior by unions or business, and is useful to workers in gathering all the information they need before casting their secret ballot.

Eliminating the window will only cut the amount of information workers may access to help make their decision.

Another aspect of card check that unions do not advertise is it would remove workers’ rights to vote on the first two-year agreement.

Here’s how card check would work: A business owner goes home Friday. Over the weekend, a union organizer goes to workers’ homes and gets half of them, plus one more, to sign a card. Come Monday, the business owner has a union to negotiate with and never had the opportunity to talk with employees before the union was formed.

Within the following 60 days, the union and business owner would then attempt to negotiate a contract. This is an unreasonable and unrealistic timeline. If an agreement isn’t reached, the process is handed to a federal arbitrator who will dictate terms of the two-year contract. Here, workers and the business owner lose yet another opportunity to vote, whereas under the current system, the contract would be subject to approval by the workers via private vote.

Under card check, the agreement is impressed upon workers without their majority support. This is, obviously, a radical departure, and as with so many other aspects of card check, both the workers and the business owner lose.

Current laws for union formation are the same laws under which unions rose to their peak power, and then fell to current levels, where they continue to uphold worker rights without dragging economic growth. Unions continue to win secret ballot elections more than 50 percent of the time, so it is difficult to see how these elections could be rigged against labor organizations.

The laws work and we should encourage our elected representatives to not support the Employee Free Choice Act. It would take away private balloting, eliminate workers’ rights to vote on the first two-year contract and strip away a business owner’s right to speak with the employees.

It is simply bad policy.

Curtis Picard is executive director of the Maine Merchants Association.