Mitch distorts facts about Employee Free Choice

The folks at Think Progress do an excellent job debunking Mitch McConnell's arguments against the Employee Free Choice Act:

Today, during an appearance at the National Press Club, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered a two-minute diatribe against the Employee Free Choice Act, announcing that “this is an issue on which there will be no bi-partisanship,” and that the act will “fundamentally harm and Europeanize America”...

First, the stat that McConnell trotted out from former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao (who is also McConnell’s wife) was completely distorted. He claimed that only 7 percent of the private sector (about 8.8 million workers) being unionized indicates that workers don’t want to join unions. However, an AFL-CIO survey found that there are 60 million American workers who say that they would join a union if they could.

...And since McConnell warns that Employee Free Choice will “fundamentally harm and Europeanize America,” it’s worth pointing out that — even using data from the conservative Heritage Foundation — countries with the highest degree of “economic freedom” have “far more worker-friendly labor laws than we do in this nation.” This includes not just Europe, but Australia and Canada. As Seth Michaels noted, “In giving corporations veto power over how workers form unions, the United States is a rare exception among industrialized democracies.”