Secret Ballot Watch

Editorial pages around the country continue to display the widespread national opposition to the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would abolish federally-supervised secret ballot unionizing elections and replace them with a public sign-up process that opens workers to intimidation and coercion.

Included among the most recent negative coverage is an op-ed that appeared over the weekend in the Boston Globe. Consider its analysis— 

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"In the name of strengthening unions, the bill would jettison two bedrock principles that workers and management should both defend.

"First, the bill would actually make it harder for employees to choose freely whether to have a labor union negotiate their employment terms. For 60 years, with few exceptions, employees have made that choice by secret ballot. …

"A second feature of the bill is more disturbing than the loss of secret ballots. For decades, so long as a labor union and a business owner negotiate in good faith, the end result of their negotiations has been up to them. Under the bill, if an employer fails to sign a contract with a new union within 130 days, a panel of labor arbitrators would dictate contract terms binding for two years. …

"Saddling businesses with obligations imposed by labor arbitrators makes no more sense than taking secret ballots away from workers. Congress and Obama should not sacrifice core principles of American labor relations to promote union expansion at all costs."

Bannon, “Bill would allow unions to expand at all costs,” Boston Globe, 01.18.09 

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With congressional Democrats remaining mum about when they plan to schedule a vote on this draconian rollback of worker rights, the steady drumbeat of opposition isn’t expected to wane anytime soon.

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