Secret Ballot Watch

As we wrote yesterday, unions are pushing for laws similar to the Employee Free Choice Act in many states because their job-killing agenda is going nowhere on Capitol Hill.

But in Missouri, supporters of the secret ballot are pushing back.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Thursday that a group trying to protect the privacy of workers in the Show-Me State survived a legal challenge to their effort:

“A group seeking to change Missouri law so that employees can only form unions on secret ballots has survived a legal challenge to their proposed ballot initiative.

“Cole County Circuit Court Judge Richard Callahan ruled today against a union-backed lawsuit that would have kept the initiative off the November 2010 ballot. Callahan ruled that Secretary of State Robin Carnahan fairly determined the wording for the ballot initiative.

“The initiative would restate current state law reaffirming the right to a secret ballot in local, state and federal elections. It would also require that when employees vote to form unions that they do so in secret ballot.”

Messenger ,“Save our secret ballot’ survives legal challenge to initiative,”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 11.12.09

Missouri … South Carolina … South Dakota … Arizona … California … the list of states acting against EFCA-like laws is growing. Clearly, protecting workers’ privacy – and their jobs – is important to them. And just as clearly, EFCA supporters don’t seem to get this. State efforts to protect the private ballot are welcome – but they’re no substitute for defeating EFCA once and for all.