'Free Choice' act is oxymoronical

Recently, our federal government passed the yet-to-be proven stimulus package. Legislators admit they haven't even read the whole bill, yet they still voted to pass it. This method of governing is disturbing under the current economic conditions.

Another piece of the legislation that is extremely important to Americans and small businesses is the Employee Free Choice Act. Unfortunately, there is nothing free about this bill, and many opponents choose to call it the Employee Forced Choice Act.

This bill would take away the right to a secret ballot. It would allow employers and union organizers to know exactly how each employee voted. Employees would lose their privacy. This would increase pressure by either the unions, businesses or other employees.

If you prefer not to be a union employee under EFCA, too bad. Once a slim majority of your co-workers sign union cards, you lose the right to choose, and you will be required to join and pay union dues. If you don't care for this, get set for more - the bill also provides for a federal bureaucrat to fly in and dictate local decisions if businesses and unions have trouble coming to agreement on contracts. So much for the pretense of "free choice."

Looking at the balance sheet, as a small business owner, it doesn't put a dollar value on the most important asset, "the employee." Our business obviously would not succeed without the employees' hard work and dedication. For that, we do our best to compensate them with wages and benefits that many others don't offer in our industry.

If employees were required to have dues deducted from their paychecks, and small businesses were forced to pay more for compensation and benefits, then businesses would be forced to pass additional costs on to consumers. That could cause the business to fail, and wouldn't be advantageous to anyone.

Let's not be naive in thinking that this bill won't affect small businesses, while helping the employee. Instead, it's a way to transfer more power to unions and government while limiting the freedoms of individual Americans.