Streamlining the intimidation process, brought to you by Team Obama:
The Obama administration is poised to change regulations to allow for union “ambush elections” in which workers have less time to decide whether or not to join a union — and in which workers’ phone numbers and home addresses are provided to unions.
The administration’s National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) proposed rules would allow for union elections — in which workers at a company vote whether or not to unionize — to be held 10 days after a petition is filed. And what, exactly, would be happening to the unions during those 10 days? The new rules require employers to disclose workers’ personal information, including phone numbers, home addresses, and information about when they work their shifts.
One of the first things I thought of was of when SEIU protestors descended on a Bank of America executives home, terrorizing his son, who was home alone at the time.
While thats not a idle concern, its not my main worry. Im more concerned about the unions gathering up all that data and the impact that will have on state and local politics.
Data was the key to turning Colorado blue. From The Blueprint: How Democrats Won Colorado (And Why Republicans Everywhere Should Care):
Coalition for a Better Colorado set about building a ground operation from scratch, with the first building block being voter data. At its most basic level, this could be gathered using public information: Coalition for a Better Colorado purchased detailed files in targeted legislative districts from county clerks in Adams, Arapahoe, Bent, Boulder, El Paso, Fremont, Gunnison, Jefferson, Lake, Larimer, Mesa, Otero, Pueblo, Rio Blanco, Routt, and Weld counties. This information was supplemented as Election Day neared. For example, voters who requested absentee ballots were tracked so mail could be timed to hit mailboxes close to the same time as ballots.
Roundtable groups such as AFL-CIO, Colorado Conservation Voters, CTLA, CEA, and the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) also helped build the database by contributing their own information.
So, if Im reading this right, employers would be forced to surrender all the contact info for each employee to a union if they get enough people to call for an election there.
It would be worth it from a political level to get elections at as many businesses as possible, even ones you know you couldnt win. At least youd get names, addresses, emails and phone numbers for the data base.
And it would save a lot of money for the lefts political ground game.
The only people they wouldnt be able to collect data on are the unemployed, and Id wager they already know where they live.