8:30 a.m. - The lineup of parade vehicles - mostly company semis but also a Hope College bus, some vintage trucks, a handful of minivans and a Tiara yacht pulled on a trailer - lines a serpentine drive within the Herman Miller property.

The lead truck is Herman Miller’s parade entry, driven by Dan Corey.

Corey’s been driving big rigs for more than 30 years, the past decade for Herman Miller.

9:29 a.m. - “Go, go, roll out!” yells Herman Miller’s local fleet coordinator Denny Meyer, waving his arms like an army commando urging the troops into position.

The police cruisers up front turn on their flashers and the long convoy finally starts moving, 14 minutes behind schedule.

9:38 a.m. - Corey makes the turn onto Main Avenue going 6 miles per hour - customary parade speed, he says - and the first spectators are spotted.

“I guess I’ll start blowing the horn. The kids love it,” he says.

As the flagship semi approaches downtown Zeeland, where crowds are more densely clustered, Corey’s statement seems to be borne out. While a handful of children are seen covering their ears, far more - and more than a few adults - give the up-and-down fist-pumping motion, the sign for truckers to blow their horns.

When you’re riding in the cab of the leading truck in a parade, you notice you’d better smile and wave at the crowds as you pass.

The feeling is catching as seniors, young couples, teens and families with small children respond to the greeting.

Corey seems to feel the warmth as well.

“This is a great town, you know it?” he muses as the truck approaches the corner of Main Avenue and State Street.

10:18 a.m. - Having quickened the pace on Chicago Drive - all the way up to 20 mph at one point - the convoy reaches Eighth Street and downtown Holland. Here the crowds are even bigger, and by the time the lead truck reaches River Avenue, the streets are packed on both sides with waving arms and smiling faces.

10:27 a.m. - Corey pulls into the Holland Civic Center parking lot, and within 30 minutes all the trucks are lined up in two rows. The crowd moves from the parade route to the parking lot and descends on the assembled trucks for free goodies and an opportunity to board some of the rigs and the yacht.

Right now, when 30 percent of employees in a workplace sign cards approving of a union, the law requires and election by secret ballot, if the employer demands it. Generally, privacy is preserved. The election is overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.

Under the proposed revision to the law, a union could form when a majority of works sing a card check-off. Secret ballots for union organization would become a quaint bit of history.

The secret ballot is a hallowed tradition in other contexts. Voters in November will be able to enter a polling booth, pull a curtain and make their decisions without fear or influence. That basic freedom from harassment is the reason ballot secrecy is so fiercely protected at all levels of government.

Opposition for the proposed law came largely form Republicans; support has come mostly from Democrats. The bill passed the House last year but was opposed by Republican Reps. Vernon Ehlers of Grand Rapids, Peter Hoekstra of Holland, David Camp of Midland and Fred Upton of St. Joseph. Supporters in the Senate included Sens. Carl Levin, D-Detroit, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing. But their backing was not enough to produce the 60 votes needed to move the measure foreword.

Union membership has fallen dramatically in the last 30 years. In 1980, 20 percent of workers were unionized. Today, only 12 percent belong to unions. Take away government employees, and the number of unionized workers is just over 7 percent.

Union leaders believe the current system is stacked against them claiming that employers intimidate workers during membership drives. If that is true, Congress should look for more proportional remedies. This bill swings things much too far in the wrong direction, opening the door to harassment and intimidation of workers by union organizers. Even long-time labor supporters such as form presidential candidate George McGovern, recognize the dangers inherent in this plan.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. McGovern decried the Employee Free Choice Act as running “counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the unheard, EFCA risks silencing those who would speak.”

That would be a travesty, one members of the next Congress - and the next president - should soundly reject.

The legislation is called the Employee Free Choice Act, and I am sad to say it runs counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the unheard, EFCA risks silencing those who would speak.

The key provision of EFCA is a change in the mechanism by which unions are formed and recognized. Instead of a private election with a secret ballot overseen by an impartial federal board, union organizers would simply need to gather signatures from more than 50% of the employees in a workplace or bargaining unit, a system known as “card-check.” There are many documented cases where workers have been pressured, harassed, tricked and intimidated into signing cards that have led to mandatory payment of dues.

Under EFCA, workers could lose the freedom to express their will in private, the right to make a decision without anyone peering over their shoulder, free from fear of reprisal.

There’s no question that unions have done much good for this country. Their tenacious efforts have benefited millions of workers and helped build a strong middle class. They gave workers a new voice and pushed for laws that protect individuals from unfair treatment. They have been a friend to the Democratic Party, and so I oppose this legislation respectfully and with care.

To my friends supporting EFCA I say this: We cannot be a party that strips working Americans of the right to a secret-ballot election.We are the party that has always defended the rights of the working class. To fail to ensure the right to vote free of intimidation and coercion from all sides would be a betrayal of what we have always championed.

Some of the most respected Democratic members of Congress—including Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, George Miller and Pete Stark of California, and Barney Frank of Massachusetts—have advised that workers in developing countries such as Mexico insist on the secret ballot when voting as towhether or not their workplaces should have a union.We should have no less for employees in our country.

I worry that there has been too little discussion about EFCA’s true ramifications, and I think much of the congressional support is based on a desire to give our friends among union leaders what they want. But part of being a good steward of democracy means telling our friends “no” when they press for a course that in the long run may weaken labor and disrupt a tried and trusted method for conducting honest elections.

While it is never pleasant to stand against one’s party or one’s friends, there are times when such actions are necessary—as with my early and lonely opposition to the VietnamWar. I hope some of my friends in Congress will re-evaluate their support for this legislation. Because as Americans, we should strive to ensure that all of us enjoy the freedom of expression and freedom from fear that is our ideal and our right.

Mr. McGovern is a former senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate.

Executives of German auto supplier Benteler Automotive, Battle Creek aircraft maintenance hub Duncan Aviation and Denso Corp., a Japanese-owned supplier to VW, praised Michigan workers. “Two of those three have operations in both Michigan and the South, and they told them the workforce is much better here, no comparison,” recalls Jim Hettinger, president and CEO of Battle Creek Unlimited, the local economic development agency.

At the same time, however, a nasty labor strike was raging at American Axle & Manufacturing plants in the cities of Detroit and Three Rivers, not far down the road on either side of Marshall. Newspaper headlines about the American Axle strike—when the Project Polar Bear team was in Michigan—were undermining the state’s best efforts to land the VW plant.

Hettinger, a highly respected business recruiter who talked Denso and 14 other Japanese companies into settling in Battle Creek during the 1980s, said the courting of the VW plant was an uphill battle from the get-go. “I don’t think VW would have looked at Michigan if she hadn’t been relentless in pursuing them,” Hettinger said of Gov. Jennifer Granholm.

Indeed, a Michigan Economic Development Corp. memo that outlines the state’s courtship of Project Polar Bear suggests Michigan wasn’t a contender when VW started scouting for sites last fall.

Persistence rewarded

Only after MEDC staff pestered VW and Granholm met Feb. 19 at the Westin Hotel at Detroit Metro Airport with Dr. Christof Spathelf, VW’s head of group manufacturing overseas, was Michigan included among the serious bidders, along with Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana.

The MEDC memo indicates that in March, the Michigan team believed it was making good progress convincing VW and the Dallas-based Staubach Co., VW’s site consultant, that the skills of Michigan workers were superior and that wage rates in the Marshall area were the same as or lower than those in competing states. On April 24, Michigan was notified it was one of three finalists.

But there was still a major hurdle. “It was clear that the client was concerned about locating in Michigan due to the existing auto industry and labor climate. Each time we met with” VW “and Staubach, we believed we were overcoming some of those preconceptions,” the MEDC memo stated.

When the top-level VW and Staubach teams came to Michigan for the crucial pitch in May at the Yarrow resort, their worst fears about Michigan’s reputation for adversarial labor relations were splattered in headlines across Detroit’s newspapers and USA Today:

“Local UAW strike hits GM’s popular Chevy Malibu,” May 6.

“UAW Turns Up the Heat,” May 7

“Axle Union Reps Leave Talks,” May 8.

Granholm, recuperating from surgery a week before the Yarrow gathering, wasn’t able to attend.

She tried later to arrange another meeting with VW’s Spathelf, but by that time Michigan’s chances were fading. Granholm received a call from VW on July 3 to tell her Michigan was out of the running. On July 15, VW announced its decision to award Project Polar Bear to Tennessee.

Labor unrest feared

“Fear of the UAW probably drove the final decision,” Hettinger told me last week.

Others familiar with the negotiations agreed with his assessment, although MEDC officials said they were never given a specific reason for Tennessee’s selection.

While some people in Michigan are quick to blame the UAW and other labor unions for all of the state’s economic ills, others—especially in the Democratic Party—tend to dance around the topic. Labor has been politically powerful in Michigan for generations, and the UAW is deeply embedded in the state’s fabric, not only in auto plants but in offices, casinos and on the boards of hospitals and charitable groups.

Those who follow the auto industry closely know that UAW President Ron Gettelfinger led the union through a series of landmark negotiations last year, making major concessions in wages, benefits and shop floor flexibility that will allow Detroit’s three automakers to be more competitive with foreign rivals. The same Ron Gettelfinger, though, used angry rhetoric to demonize Steve Miller and Dick Dauch, the chairmen of Delphi Corp. and American Axle, respectively, when UAW bargaining stalled at those firms.

My point here isn’t to blame only the UAW for Michigan’s reputation as a hostile labor environment. CEOs who receive and dole out huge bonuses to executives while demanding wage and benefit cuts from rank-and-file workers need to understand the anger those actions provoke.

My point is that Michigan still suffers from a widespread perception that the state has a rotten labor climate—in an era where talent, productivity and labor harmony trump all other criteria about where to locate and grow a business.

The badmouthing, the finger-pointing, the strikes, the slowdowns ... It all has to stop.

Period.

The past 30 years of decline for Michigan’s auto industry and its chief labor union should have made it abundantly clear by now. If we keep doing the same dumb stuff, we will get the same dumb results.

To tweak a famous saying from President Bill Clinton’s campaign guru James Carville, “It’s the labor climate, stupid.”

Contact TOM WALSH at 313-223-4430 or .