Secret Ballot Watch

As opposition grows to the anti-worker card check proposal, much attention has been paid to the bill’s elimination of the secret ballot for workers deciding whether to form a union. Unfortunately, an equally troubling provision stripping workers of their rights has largely escaped public scrutiny.

Quietly lurking within the Democrats’ card check scheme – deceptively named the Employee Free Choice Act, despite the fact that it takes away employees’ free choice of whether or not to join a union through a secret ballot election – is a proposal that would prevent many workers from voting on their first contract.

Known as binding arbitration, this portion of the card check plan would turn over contract negotiations to a panel of federal arbitrators if a business and a newly-formed union do not reach agreement within a relatively short period of time, just 120 days. Consider the following analysis of this dangerous proposal, which appeared in an Investor’s Business Daily editorial last week: 

Less well-known but just as harmful as the gross violation of privacy is a provision in the bill that authorizes government arbitrators to set the terms of the initial contract if the union and management can't agree on a deal. At that point, workers have lost all control over the conditions of their employment.

Editorial, “Union Revival Act,” Investor’s Business Daily, 01.07.09 

By handing contract negotiations over to federal arbitrators, the anti-worker card check plan would allow federal bureaucrats with no knowledge of a particular industry or its workers’ needs to set work rules and employment policies for a full two years. And all without giving workers the chance to vote.

How many more ways can Democrats think of to take away workers’ right to vote?

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