3/5/07

If the bunny had opposable thumbs, he'd be sticking them in his eyes by now. Sticking them in his ears wouldn't hold out all the nonsense that's clogging up the networks, airwaves and bandwiths these days--those long lepine ears, perfected by listening for the slightest hint of danger for millennia, are far too acute for such crude measures.

One newsbomb has his whiskers in a twist, however. The bunny cannot believe that Congress is seriously pushing the H.R. 800 bill, which would enable union certification with just the flash of a card. Goodbye secret ballot, goodbye worker choice, goodbye oversight. Picture the scene, the bunny asks you: one fine morning, you hop to the front door of your work-warren, where six gorillas are waiting for you. Carry this card from now on, they say, Or Else. Implicit in the "Or Else" suffix is the unspoken understanding that your "vote" will reflect the union party line. It better, since the results will be made public to your co-workers, union reps and the bosses. The potential for coercion is immediate and unmistakeable. It is a mafia pipe dream.

Steve Pfister, a head flack for the National Retail Federation's government relations arm, said as much in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on 28 February. "There are many examples where card check elections have been challenged on the basis of coercion, misrepresentation, forgery, fraud, peer pressure and promised benefits." (PR Newswire, 3/1/07).

Such self-segregation of unions from Federal regulatory bodies would be "throwing away half a century of labor law in a single month," warned Pfister's co-flack Rob Green.

This, the bunny thinks, could make unions much easier to manipulate for particular agendas. Strikes could be crushed from within, whistle-blowers would end up in dumpsters with the evening trash.

All of which has happened before. This, the bunny thinks, is what happens in a major port city where the ports are now largely for tourists. Albert Anastasia got his start running the Brooklyn waterfront; the Westies ran the Hell's Kitchen piers. Again, again, all over again.

The bunny shudders and goes back into his box.