In a recent edition of Newsweek, a small business owner named Kevin Kelly opined that our nation would, indeed, be better off if we were devoid of any and all labor unions. Mr. Kelly made this point in reference to his contention that the proposed “Employee Free Choice Act” would cripple American small businesses – in his words, “the backbone of the American economy.” In both instances, Mr. Kelly is flat wrong.

In his article, Mr. Kelly recounts the story of how his family vacation was interrupted when he got a call from his assistant who told him that an OSHA inspector had shown up at their manufacturing facility. In Mr. Kelly’s warped world view, a visit by an OSHA inspector could only mean one thing: a union organizing campaign. Yes, that’s right – Mr. Kelly is indicative of a mindset that suggests that an entire federal agency exists at the beck and call of organized labor to solely assist it in organizing businesses such as his.

Maybe…just maybe…that OSHA official stopped by because of the agency’s “National Emphasis Program on Amputations” which was reissued in 2006, and is designed and being implemented to identify and reduce workplace machinery and equipment hazards which are causing, or likely to cause, amputations. One of the industries in which OSHA was targeting workplace inspections for amputation hazards was, you guessed it, the bag manufacturing industry. Some of the targeted machinery and equipment identified as possible dangers for amputations include: benders, rollers and shapers, press brakes, casting machinery, conveyor belts – in other words, the types of machinery and equipment found in a bag manufacturing!

But, let’s just accept – for the sake of argument – Mr. Kelly’s paranoia that the visit from the OSHA inspector was the result of a fledgling union organizing drive. In his Newsweek op-ed, Mr. Kelly gives an account of how his employees first de-certified a union from his plant then, three years later, his company had to endure another union organizing campaign. In his own words, he says, “Truthfully, we hadn’t been prepared for life without a union. We didn’t build a human resources department, we failed to craft a wage scale to guarantee timely increases, and we didn’t reach out enough to hear employee concerns.”

In others words, as Mr. Kelly freely admits, his company was a target for union organization because they did a shabby job of managing their workforce and treating their employees with respect and dignity.

Mr. Kelly then goes further. The prospect of the Employee Free Choice Act actually becoming law has, “inspired some companies to act. One business in my city has started to pay more attention to employee communication, publishing a monthly newsletter and holding meetings with shifts to explain how the company is doing.”

Another company, Mr. Kelly explains, “has gone so far to hire a firm to conduct an employee survey so he can idetify and resolve any festering problems.”

So, the threat of increased unionization is forcing many employers to actually act like decent bosses? That, my friends, is the beauty of the uniquely American concept known as “checks and balances.” The concept of “checks and balances” comes from our Constitution. The different branches of the government “check” each other’s power so that no one branch has more power than the other. The same is true in the business world. Labor unions, by definition, offer a check to the far-too-often propensity for business owners and corporations to abuse their workers in pursuit of greater bottom-line profits.

Mr. Kelly even acknowledges this when he concludes that the union organizing drive experienced by his company “certainly woke me up. Almost overnight we quickly overhauled our employee relations. We put a pay scale in place so that raises occurred in a timely manner and not just at the whim of a manager.” Good for you, Mr. Kelly. If thousands upon thousands of other business owners and corporations adopted such a management philosophy from the get go…then the prospect of the Employee Free Choice Act would elicit nothing more than a collective yawn.

Unfortunately, that is not the reality. The vast proportion of the business community sees this legislation as some type Armageddon; where its passage will accelerate the decline of businesses all across the nation. Whenever a business owner speaks of the Employee Free Choice Act (or climate change legislation or health care reform, for that matter), he or she inevitably will draw upon the most over-used, enduring lie in American politics: these policies will kill the job-creating machine of American small business.

As Washington Post business writer Steven Pearlstein pointed out recently in relation to the small business community being up in arms over a proposed “employer mandate” provision with regard to health care reform, “…one reason small business created all those jobs in the first place is that they enabled big companies with generous health plans to outsource work to small companies that had lower cost structures because they offered no (health) insurance at all. If simply requiring those small businesses to offer health insurance would wipe out that cost advantage and drive them out of business, then maybe those companies weren’t the great engines of innovation and efficiency that they always claimed they were.”

I cannot speak for any other industry, but in the U.S. construction industry the employers who are signatory to union contacts are typically enterprises with 10 or less employees. By anyone’s measure, these are small businesses. Yet, they manage to not only survive, but thrive, even when offering generous and competitive pay and benefits packages.

How does this happen?

Because our unions and our contractors have a labor-management model that should be copied and embraced by other industries. First, we jointly operate the world’s most successful and admired skill craft training infrastructure that ensures a steady supply of highly skilled, highly productive workers.

Secondly, we constantly work with our signatory contractors, as well as construction users, to find new ways to foster greater efficiencies and productivity on the jobsite.

And finally, we have adopted a firm, non-negotiable attitude of professionalism that encourages each of our members and local unions to be wholly accountable not only to their employers, but to themselves and to their brothers and sisters in their union. In our world, the actions of one affect the prospects of many.

So, to Mr. Kelly and the many others in the business community who lie awake at night in great fear of the Employee Free Choice Act, I say this: get your own house in order and you have nothing to fear. And to those business owners who refuse to adapt, and who continue to embrace a business model that is predicated upon squeezing out profits through worker mistreatment and abuse, I can only say that you, and your employees, deserve the union that you get.