Herman Cain was on American Family Radio’s “Today’s Issues” program today with host Tim Wildmon where he was asked what he thought about the upcoming June recall election of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.
Cain responded by warning that if Walker is recalled, businesses in Wisconsin will leave the state and unions “will continue to destroy the state.” Cain then went on to assert that when he was in charge of Godfather’s Pizza, his employees had every right to try and form a union, just as he had every right to fire them for trying to do so.
That last bit might come as a surprise to the National Labor Relations Board, which states quite clearly that it is illegal for an employer to fire employees for attempting to form a union:
The National Labor Relations Act forbids employers from interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of rights relating to organizing, forming, joining or assisting a labor organization for collective bargaining purposes, or from working together to improve terms and conditions of employment, or refraining from any such activity. Similarly, labor organizations may not restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of these rights.
Examples of employer conduct that violates the law:
- Threatening employees with loss of jobs or benefits if they join or vote for a union or engage in protected concerted activity.
If Governor Walker is recalled, the unions win and Wisconsin loses. I already know businesses in Wisconsin that say if the unions prevail and Governor Walker loses, they are packing up and leaving. We will have the first look at what America will look like if we do not stop this mess … If the unions win, that means that they don’t want balanced budgets, they still want to continue to destroy the state and we will be looking at the first instance, along with California, of what America is going to look like if we don’t push back and start to win against some of these forces.
When I ran Godfather’s Pizza, my employees had every right – every right – to unionize if they wanted to. The good news is, because of the kind of work environment we created, they didn’t want to unionize. But they had every right to unionize. Now, if they had decided to unionize, I could also decide to fire all of ’em.
