David Bego lived the nightmare of dealing with the SEIU and union tactics. He sets out a scary scenario of what will happen if the laws are changed to allow strong-armed union tactics on small business. He is interviewed on the Boss Business Brief by Mike Siegel.

Transcript:

Siegel: Back we are, folks, with the BOSS Business Brief. Good to have you with us. Mike Siegel here. As we get into the conversation about this onerous process of Card Check being promulgated by unions. Will they try to do it even if the congress does not go along with it? Our guest to talk about this, David Bego. We are glad to have him on the program as he talks to us about this particular element on the impact on small business of this support of the labor union and is that support greater than it ought to be? Mr. Bego, thanks for being with us. How are you, Sir?
David: Great Mike. Thanks for having me on today, I appreciate it.
Siegel: Well, I appreciate your time, and I know you are suffering from a bit of bronchitis so let's try to make this focused here and get the information out so that you can rest your voice.
David: Oh, I'm fine. I just wanted to let you know in case I was kind of crackly on the other end.
Siegel: Okay. Tell us, if you will, about your sense of this with regard to the troubling matter of policies that dramatically assist small business, which are only by the way 7% of the private sector in terms of membership, although in the public sector it is much bigger, and how that is impacting small business.
David: Well, the problem is twofold. One is the fact that the unions like the union we fought, The Service Employees International, SEIU, are trying to, along with other unions, are trying to force through Card Check, or the Employee Free Choice Act. At this point, this is probably not going to happen with the recent election. However, the other side is all the initiatives that this administration are forcing through either through executive order or rule changes or appointments to the National Labor Relations Board like Craig Becker, who is a FCIU attorney for 17 years, and then Mark Piece who was an Teamsters attorney. What they are in effect trying to do is institute Card Check through rule changes and executive orders. Here is what is going to happen if they can g et these things done, and they are the same type of tactics they used against my company in their corporate campaign against us, they will use the new rules and the new rule changes in the National Labor Relations Board to go in to businesses and intimate and force then to capitulate into signing a neutrality agreement, which is what they tried to get us to do. If they put up a fight, they will file all kinds of NLRB charges, they will also file all kinds of Department of Labor charges, EOC charges, until the employers have so many charges sitting out there and face potentially huge fines that the capitulate and sign a neutrality agreement. Now, the neutrality agreement is the genesis of Card Check. It has the same kind of language in it where it eliminates a secret ballot election, there are gag orders on the employer, there is language that gives the union your employees names and addresses, and it just goes on and on. If this happens, if they get enough of these things instituted through rule changes and executive orders, they are going to go after every size business from the mom and pop, you know 2-3-4-5-10 people on up to major corporations, because they know they can intimate people into signing this agreement, and it is going to be scary for America.
Siegel: That would be scary, and if they do it by executive order it is really going to be scary. The question would be whether… of course, an executive order does not trump legislation. So, the question would be whether you could get enough democrats in the senate to go along with the republicans in the senate to reject any form of card check, which would be problematic, and then of course you could have the possibility with Barrack Obama feeling maybe he is just going to be a one term president anyway, he would veto that and then you could never get to two-thirds, so the executive orders could stand in an astonishing fashion to literally violate the will of the congress, if they got enough democrats in the senate. Let me give you a specific case, because I was talking to a fellow who owns a farm small business and has employees who, by the way, from outside observers that I talk to are very happy about their work, but then the Cesar Chavez Union walked in and wanted to create a union on this farm and use that as the model for doing that all over the state that this farm is located in. They wanted to do it with Card Check. In other words, they wanted the person to just sit down at the table and check off support for being in a union with the thug from the union looking over the shoulder. The point the farmer made was if you want to have a private vote just the way we do at elections without anybody standing over anybody's shoulder, and of course Card Check is exactly that, the person is checking off the card right in front of the union thug (as I call them), then you would have a legitimate vote. He said, I have no problem. My guys will vote to vote the union down. The union refused to come in and do it that way. So, when I interviewed them on the air from the union, they talked about it as being Gestapo tactics and all this sort of thing when, in fact, they are the ones using so-called Gestapo tactics. What about that?
David: You are exactly right. In my book, "The Devil at My Doorstep," talks about a corporate campaign about our company. We are in 36 states and have about 5000 employees and they came after us in the midwest in the cities of Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio, and they wanted us to do the exact same thing that this union that are talking about was trying to do to the farmer. When they come to you, they don't want an election, because they know they can't win. Unions are dinosaurs and they need membership and they need money, so they are really pushing this Card Check issue. When they called me and I sat down with them they said, we want you to sign this neutrality agreement, so we can take away the secret ballot election which is Card Check. I said, well I'm not going to do that. You k now, that is not morally right to take that away from my employees. I will never sign it. When I told them that they looked at me and they said, "well, we like conversation, but we embrace confrontation. We are going to attack you, your family, your employees, your customers, and anybody associated with you in the next 90 days." And they did. We had a five year war with them that we ended up winning. But my problem with all this is 90% of the time or more they will put so much pressure on businesses that the business owners will give in. Like this poor farmer. I admire him for standing up, but if the administration allows and changes some of these rules and allows the NRB to become more liberal and favor unions more through these changes, they are going to go after Card Check and corporate campaigns like they did against this farmer nationwide and it is going to be ugly.
Siegel: I thank you very much for being on the program. I word to the wise. Every small business group. The NFIB, the American Small Business League, every one of them and many others, should be involved in this politically. Thank you, Sir, Mr. Bego for being with us. I appreciate your time on the program.
David: Thank you very much, Mike. I appreciate it.
Siegel: Have a good one. And this is a huge problem, folks. It is not going to go away. This administration is in the pocket of the unions and they are going to want to do this and carry out this Card Check, which would be ominous and dangerous. Mike Siegel here. Thanks for being with us.