Secret Ballot Watch

Another week, another round of negative editorial coverage of the Democrats’ ill-considered card check scheme, a plan to strip workers of the right to secret ballot unionizing elections. Just today, the Las Vegas Review-Journal includes an editorial decrying the negative economic consequences of Democrats’ anti-worker card check plan. 

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 "[I]t's reassuring to see Republicans ready to dig in and make a fight over this 'card check' proposal.

"President Obama has said repeatedly that fast action is needed to shore up a teetering economy. Frankly, much that has been proposed -- blocking asset transfers from failed firms to new entrepreneurs more likely to create productive, long-term jobs, instead seizing more private wealth to fund government make-work boondoggles -- is as unwise now as it was in 1933.

"But in this economic climate, with each week producing a new empty parking lot with plywood on the windows, do the geniuses in Washington really mean to create a situation where business owners already struggling to stay afloat can without warning be handed their 'last straw' -- a stack of cards adorned with the message, 'You're now a union shop; here are our demands'?

"It verges on lunacy."

Editorial, “‘Card check’ slows nominee,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, 01.26.09 

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As regular readers know, the card check plan not only strips workers of their privacy by replacing secret ballot elections with a public sign-up, it would also prevent many workers from voting on their first contract while failing to provide workers with stronger protections against intimidation, public pressure, or coercion. Lunacy indeed.

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