Specter Knows: Card Check Is Good for Union Leaders, Democrats, Bad for America

Michael Barone

As the Detroit automakers' troubles show, the adversarial work rules insisted on by the United Auto Workers—a relatively enlightened union in this area—made them unable to compete in quality or cost with foreign automakers who employ cooperative management techniques and treat their workers as intelligent partners rather than as dumb animals, the way the time-and-motion study managers did in the 1930s.

Card check would give coercive union organizers the chance to impose on large swaths of the private-sector economy the burdens the UAW imposed on the Detroit automakers. It would set up tollgates to channel the money of consumers as well as taxpayers to the Democratic Party. You can see how that would be good for union leaders and Democrats. But good for America?

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