FedEx and Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) have landed a one-two punch on unions and their EFCA "card-check" bill.

EFCA is the acronym for the Employee Free Choice Act -- a union organizing tool where employees are asked to sign authorization cards in open gatherings. They can be subjected to the kind of pressure that the Sopranos use to sign up new customers.

Frank Cannon, an employee of C. J. Coakley, a Virginia contractor testified on March 23, 2009 at a hearing held by the Senate Republican Conference and the Republican Policy Committee on how elimination of the secret ballot under the EFCA would expose him and his coworkers to union intimidation.   

EFCA, or “card check” legislation, would remove the long-standing requirement that guarantees employees their right to a secret ballot election when they are deciding whether or not to join a union.  

Under the “card check” process, employees would be forced to indicate their choice of whether to join a union by signing a card in front of their co-workers, employers and union organizers, opening the door to coercion and intimidation.  

Cannon told Congress and the media about specific incidents in which he had been bullied or intimidated by union thugs.  He mentioned instances when he was pressured to join a union and at least one instance where he was intimidated into under-performing on the job.   

“Even in secret ballot elections, co-workers bully and coerce others into joining the union,” Cannon said. “The elimination of the secret ballot under EFCA would only serve to make the threats of union organizers that much more effective and intimidating.  

“The lengths that unions will go in order to achieve their goals can be terrifying,” Cannon continued. “Imagine if these same people who use these tactics every day were given the opportunity to see how I was voting in an organizing campaign. The secret ballot is not only our fundamental right, but the only safe and fair way that can allow a worker to decide whether or not to join a union.”  

Specter's action gives Republicans the 41 votes necessary to block union-supported legislation that would do away with secret ballots in union organization elections. 

He was the only Senate Republican who once voted for a debate on the bill and later became the target of a furious lobbying fight by unions and the business community. 

Unions and business are waiting to see if Specter's decision will change the votes of any swing-state Democrats and neutralize an issue for which Senators from every state are getting pilloried by their home-state business communities. Unions spent billions in 2008 to elect Democrats who would pass card check. 

Specter hopes that by getting on the right side of what has become a grassroots issue for business and the GOP, he can avoid a primary battle for his Senate seat next year. 

He also criticized the bill's elimination of the secret ballot and an equally pernicious provision that would require "compulsory arbitration" in disputes when EFCA-certified unions and management can't reach a contract in 90 days. 

Meantime, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that  FEDEX threatens to cancel orders for 15 new Boeing 777 cargo planes if Congress passes EFCA.  The planes sell for $3.75 Billion each. 

FEDEX is adhering to the rule in the movie Untouchables: ..."they pull a knife, you pull a gun; they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue..."

To step up pressure against EFCA, FedEx may even cancel plans to buy as many as 30 new Boeing planes if Congress passes a bill that would remove truck drivers, couriers and other employees at FedEx's Express unit from the jurisdiction of the federal Railway Labor Act (RLA) of 1926 and place them under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

It is easier for unions to win NLRB elections, because they are conducted on a unit-by-unit basis. RLA elections include units in an entire company. The RLA was originally intended to maintain labor peace in the railroad industry. When commercial aviation became an industry, Congress placed airlines under the RLA.

FedEx's actions raise the stakes in an increasingly bitter battle involving chief rival, United Parcel Service Inc, and the Teamsters union, which has been trying to organize FedEx employees for years and years.

The union drive to eliminate secret ballots for union elections has united American business in opposition, so union bosses are putting on the brass knuckles. 

A union consortium called, "Change to Win" is demanding that banks receiving Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money to refrain from criticism of  "card check." The banking lobby didn't back down. Now unions are escalating the fight, demanding that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner muzzle the companies if they won't muzzle themselves.

"Firms receiving significant TARP assistance continue to lobby against the interests of hard working taxpayers," says the letter from Change to Win Chairwoman Anna Burger. "For example, these firms continue to oppose legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgage loan terms, establish a Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights and protect consumers from corporations that bury mandatory arbitration clauses in fine print."

Imagine that -- banks are daring to fight legislation that would reduce their profitability at a time when public officials say they are desperate for banks to earn themselves out of trouble.

The letter targets the Principal Financial Group, based in Des Moines, which it says should be denied TARP money because of the "scale and scope" of its lobbying.

But wait -- Citigroup spent three times more money on fourth-quarter lobbying than the paltry $515,000 spent by Principal Financial.

So, what gives? It seems Principal's real sin is that it "lobbied on 26-labor related bills . . . including the Employee Free Choice Act," and it is the only TARP applicant or recipient to have disclosed doing so.

In case Geithner doesn't get the political point, the letter helpfully notes that "there is now a Congressional effort underway to curb lobbying by TARP recipients." Senators Dianne Feinstein (California) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) are leading that effort to limit corporate political speech, and Ms. Burger copies no fewer than 13 Members of Congress on her letter to Treasury.

The double standard here is remarkable. Every year, unions collect millions of dollars in grants from the very government agencies they lobby. In 2002 and 2003, the SEIU (Service Employees International Union) -- the main driver behind Ms. Burger's consortium -- lobbied the Department of Health and Human Services while receiving between $563,226 and $938,388 per year in grants.

Unions are desperate to pass their easy-organizing EFCA agenda this year, because they know liberal majorities on Capitol Hill won't remain after the next elections. They also know they haven't been able to organize workers on a level playing field, so they want to rewrite the rules so their organizers can see which workers are voting "no" and then apply Soprano-type pressures.

They complain that without EFCA, employers can continue to run counter-union campaigns that tell lies about unions -- they mislead the media and the public with tales of employer threats, interrogation, promises, spying and termination of union supporters. It happens, but very, very rarely.

Those acts are unlawful and when an employer is found to have done them  the National Labor Relations Board penalizes these "unfair labor practices" and sanctions the employer with orders to re-instate terminated employees. In serious cases, elections are cancelled and the employer is ordered to bargain. Failure to comply with NLRB orders means a visit to federal court.

Most employees can see how the United Auto Workers union has contributed to the destruction of Detroit, steel makers and so many other industries. That's why unions need government-sanctioned coercion to prevail both against business and employees.

EFCA will end more than 70 years of precedent established under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) of 1935, and it will repeal employees’ freedom to vote on union membership in a federally supervised, secret-ballot election when deciding whether or not to have a union where they work.

Unions want EFCA to make it easy to get more members and their dues money. EFCA is all about money...unions donated more than one Billion in dues dollars to elect union-friendly Democrats in 2008.