Mr. Brett McMahon - VP Miller & Long on the EFCA

I spoke with Mr. McMahon, VP of Business Development at Miller & Long Concrete Construction and he gave permission to reprint his article in it's entirety.

I'm an outsider with no ties to Miller & Long and in fact, never heard of the company until a couple of days ago. The Internet is a wonderful thing and information is at everyones fingertips. What about Miller & Long?

First, you can Google "Miller & Long Concrete Construction" and find NOTHING negative, other than posts by LASER, Inc. (Legal And Safety Employee Research) publishing on The Concrete Facts. Call me skeptical but these folks run slick, professional websites and I suspect I'll have to "follow the money" to see where the bias's are. Not for a second do I believe it's all "public service". I take the lack of negative information as a pretty good sign the company is doing business the right way.

The company was formed in 1947 (the year I was born :-) and is now the largest concrete contractor in the U.S. Miller & Long has received numerous awards including the Engineering News Record Number One Concrete Construction Company in the U.S. for the last four years in a row. I know nothing about concrete but it seems pretty impressive to me.

I'll sum up my feelings by saying I see a profitable company, in business for 62 years, with thousands of employees, being threatened because unions don't want to compete on a level playing field. If the majority (50% +1) of the employees wanted a union, they'd have one. Seems pretty simple to me.

Mr. McMahon:

The Employee Free Choice Act Could Kill My Company

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 by Brett McMahon

My company has been operating for more than sixty years — six decades — to build the American dream. We have been named America’s top concrete construction firm in four of the last five years. So take it seriously when I warn:The Employee Free Choice Act could kill my company, and many like it.

EFCA, known by many as the “card check” bill is an absolute abomination. Its card check provision would allow union organizers to harass thousands of my company’s employees. Its “binding arbitration” provision would substitute the judgment of a government-imposed busybody for decades of practical know-how developed during the building of a successful company within the free enterprise system. That’s why this fight is personal for me, my family, and thousands of our employees.

The fallout from EFCA could be severe. From a business perspective, it would make the already-difficult economy even tougher because the labor market would be much less flexible. And the notion of having the government dictate terms of private contracts is mystifying. But from an employee’s perspective, there is worry that the large economic effect of EFCA will be massive job loss.

That this issue is alive at all is a testament to the fact that workplace issues are complex and arcane. Most people have no daily experience with union organizing laws — and it’s an area that’s still misunderstood by those who do deal with the subject. Many people wrongly believe unions do not have fair access to “pitch” employees on their service. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Organized labor has relied on these misperceptions because it desperately needs to pass EFCA (or some form of it) to usher in millions of new members and their dues dollars. Of course, if a private business like mine asked the government to pass a law virtually forcing people to pay for my service, there would be unstoppable outrage (much as we have seen from citizens and editorial boards who are aware of EFCA). In part, organized labor needs to continue to fund its political operations. A lesser known concern is that many union-run pension funds have run out of sufficient membership to keep the funds solvent and, consequently, unions are seeking ways to get more people “in the door” to stay afloat.

Whatever the reason EFCA is pushed by a special interest, it is not in the interest of working Americans or the free enterprise system. We, and our elected leaders, must continue our promising fight against EFCA and any “compromise” that harms employee rights and the health of our economy.