Guest columnist Warren B Hardy II: Union tactic harms honest employers

Sunday, July 29, 2007 | 8:06 a.m.

I could not believe my eyes when I opened my Las Vegas Sun the other morning and read an article ("Out to hurt builder, union takes aim at tenant instead," July 26) in which an attorney for the carpenters union compared a hard working, reputable local Nevada employer to the Nazis!

And what was the employer's horrific crime?

He chose not to affi liate with a union.

Apparently failing to affi liate with a union makes him a monster of historical proportion, comparable to Adolf Hitler himself.

Let's be clear about what is going on in the Las Vegas Valley right now in terms of union organizing. What the tenant referenced in the article is experiencing is a union-organizing tactic commonly referred to as a "corporate campaign."

The objective of this type of campaign is to infl ict as much economic pain and hardship as possible on a contractor's customer in an effort to get them to do the unions' bidding. They will attack the innocent customer's reputation, publicly challenge his business ethics without cause and harass his customers or clients until the contractor, who is the real target of the campaign, is forced to agree to their demands.

Why have the unions resorted to such tactics? Because the traditional union organizing strategy of a retail organizing campaign, followed by a certifi ed National Labor Relations Board election, has failed miserably, both locally and nationally.

The failure of these more traditional campaigns is a direct result of the fact that market forces have compelled employers to work hard to retain quality employees and, in turn, employees are fi nding themselves perfectly capable of negotiating directly with their employers on all employment matters, including wages and benefi ts.

In other words, the market is doing its job.

The corporate campaign we are seeing in Las Vegas is a fi nal effort to prop up a failing enterprise by any means necessary. Unfortunately, good, honest, hard-working local employers and their employees, who are only trying to provide for themselves and their families, are going to get caught in the middle.

Finally, just as we support the right of all Nevadans in this "right to work state" to not affi liate with the unions, we also support the rights of those who do choose to affi liate with a union. We just believe it should be a decision based on what is best for employee s and their famil ies and not on coercion and economic destruction.

Warren B. Hardy II, a Republican state senator, is president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Las Vegas.