Left Turns

Not too long ago, Democratic presidential candidates were wooing Big Labor by voicing support for the anti-worker card check scheme. Now, Sen. Bernie Sanders has taken that union boss courtship a step further by introducing card check as a legislative proposal named the Workplace Democracy Act.
 
It’s a curious new name for this old anti-worker scheme. In a democracy, people have the right to vote by secret ballot. Under the senator’s proposal, workers would be denied the right to vote by secret ballot when deciding whether or not to join a union.
 
But the name is really the only thing that’s new about the bill. As the Washington Post noted, the legislation is “essentially a rebranded Employee Free Choice Act,” the similarly misnamed measure Democrats have unsuccessfully tried to push through Congress before.
 
In addition to stripping workers of their right to a secret ballot, the proposal would destroy jobs and expose workers to greater coercion and intimidation. It’s easy to see why the idea has always been so unpopular with the American public. And why Sen. Sanders clearly thinks it needs rebranding.
 
Unfortunately, in his “bid to endear himself to the labor community ahead of the 2016 presidential election,” the senator seems to be ignoring what’s best for workers. As House Education and the Workforce Committee Republicans have written:
 

Workers should have a free choice about whether to join a particular union. And the only way to guarantee that right is to ensure that the secret ballot remains the standard. Forcing workers to publicly declare their support – or lack thereof – for a particular union opens them up to pressure from all sides. Don’t be deceived. The only way to provide employee free choice is to protect the secret ballot.
 

Still, Sen. Sanders insists on once again adding card check legislation to the list of ways in which Democrats are helping the Obama National Labor Relations Board advance the interests of Big Labor at the expense of hardworking Americans. So to the nation's workers: Don’t be fooled; the name may be new, but the scheme is the same.

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