Editor’s Note by Erick: W. Thomas Musser is chairman of The Tri-M Group, LLC – an electrical solutions company in business 45 years – located in Kennett Square, PA. He knows first hand the dangers of card check.

This week, a number of economists will come together to tell Americans about their plans to “rebuild prosperity.” What they won’t tell us is how the law they promote, the Employee Free – or better stated Forced – Choice Act (EFCA) would single-handedly destroy the entrepreneurial, small business fabric on which this nation was founded.

The experts – with their Ivy League educations, swanky credentials, and sophisticated vocabularies – will talk a lot about “our interests” but fail to mention their own.

They’ll tell us how removing the right to a secret ballot in employee elections and publicly exposing workers to intimidation and coercion by union leaders – both in and out of the workplace – actually creates jobs.

They’ll explain that once a union is created and employee contract negotiations fail to reach an accord in 90 days that inserting a government-appointed arbiter will actually facilitate commerce and business activity.

What they won’t tell us is that the very unions that would benefit from their words and deeds funded these reports and conferences.

In fact, one of the so-called experts represents the Economic Policy Institute, an organization that receives a third of its funding from labor bosses who stand to gain the most from EFCA. 

This same organization says it wants to “rebuild prosperity,” but they’re Web site states they promote an agenda of “shared prosperity.”

What does a labor-funded report written by those who believe in “shared prosperity” mean to the nation’s small business owners?

It means in a time of extreme economic distress, the country’s primary job creators – who are working longer hours and making tougher decisions to simply stay afloat – are going to be burdened with significant, additional costs, immense bureaucracy, and a heightened degree of uncertainty that will destroy many and harm the entire workplace.

America has always been the most productive nation on the face of the Earth because of the entrepreneurial and courageous spirit of those who traveled across the globe for freedom, fought for their independence against insurmountable odds, gathered their belongings and forged a new life in open plains and grass-filled prairies, and made America the leader in both the industrial and technological eras through sheer will and hard work.

If EFCA is enacted the motivation and guts it takes to succeed – and has always defined our nation’s greatness – will be eliminated. The days of making it on your own, moving up the professional ladder because of innovation and commitment, and the ability to build and pass along something of value to future generations will be lost. Union bosses will demand terms that will render businesses uncompetitive and reward workers based on tenure and seniority, not performance or productivity.

This bill is not just a bad bill, it’s an un-American bill.

EFCA destroys worker rights by doing away with what has been a bedrock in our democracy, the secret ballot.

EFCA places the government directly into the workplace by having them decide what pay, benefits, and working conditions employees receive.

EFCA places in jeopardy those who are just trying to make a living, by exposing them to the bullying and threats of labor bosses, some of whom are under investigation for corruption and criminal acts.

At the end of the day, America’s small businesses sell our produce, build our homes, sew our clothes, make our food, and exemplify everything that’s good and right with America.

They need our support and assistance in a very challenging time so they can retain workers, maintain service levels, and plan to grow and prosper in the months and years ahead. As they succeed, so will our nation. That has always been the case, and will remain so.

We must reward the risk, sweat, and tears that have made small business the backbone of our economy, not punish it.

This bill will place burdens on businesses that will not just de-incentivize existence; it will make it impossible for many to survive. The result: businesses will close and fail, and layoffs will result, devastating both our economy and a social safety net already stretched beyond its means.

So when these “experts” use their fancy degrees and complex words to try and convince regular, everyday, working Americans that we need to pass the Employee Forced Choice Act, the response is simple and plain, we need to help the small businesses that employee the vast majority of our workforce, not annihilate them by pursuing a solution in search of a problem.