There has recently begun to be a higher volume of pro-Employee Free Choice Act posts written on progressive blogs. I’m seeing a lot more bloggers make the case for increased worker rights and modernization of labor laws. In an effort to promote their good work, as well as spread the education of liberal blog readers on why it is so critical that Congress pass the Employee Free Choice Act with all speed, I’m going to periodically highlight some of the best commentary on Employee Free Choice that I see around the blogosphere.

Mick Arran of Fact-esque has a great post up discussing the US Chamber of Commerce’s announced intention to spend $10 million to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act. Arran makes a highly pragmatic argument about the relationship between unions and successful businesses. Arran writes:

[The Employee Free Choice Act] allows workers to sign a card in secret before the employer can marshall his forces to scare the bejesus out of employees and intimidate them into voting against unionizing even when they want a union. And to the employer, make no mistake about it, keeping a union out is tantamount to fighting a war. They have convinced themselves that the company will disintegrate if the employees are union, that they are therefore fighting for their very lives. The fact that that has almost never been true and that to the contrary unionized shops tend to make more money than “right-to-work” shops isn’t part of their worldview. They neither recognize it no acknowledge it.

I’ll be curious to see how Arran continues to write about the Employee Free Choice Act.  The successes of unionized businesses suggests that at some level the opposition to unionized workforces in the business world isn’t entirely ontological. Hatred of unions is something that is taught in the business world. Clearly the Chamber of Commerce is investing $10 million to teach this lesson to their constituents again. But it just isn’t true and posts like Arran’s help highlight the facts.

One small nit-pick with Arran’s post: the use of the acronymn. It’s the Employee Free Choice Act, something which is clear and easy to understand, as it gives workers a choice as to how they can organize unions in their workplace – by majority sign-up or by an election. Using the acronym makes what we’re talking about abstract and unintelligible. If we can succeed in telling the public and members of Congress specifically what we support, then we can win. If we argue for alphabet soup, winning becomes much, much harder on an elemental level.

Disclosure: I’m proud to work for the Service Employees International Union. This post was neither approved by nor with the knowledge of SEIU. It represents my views alone.