Secret Ballot Watch

Most of the debate surrounding the woefully misnamed Employee Free Choice Act has focused on the bill’s “card check” provision to do away with secret ballot union organizing elections. And it’s no wonder. Denying workers the right to a secret ballot is fundamentally undemocratic, exposing workers to public pressure and possible retribution based on whether or not they “sign the card.”

As troubling as this provision is, the bill does not stop there. Lurking in the legislation, unbeknownst to many Americans, is an equally troubling plan to deny workers the right to vote on their first contract. Known as binding arbitration, this element of the legislation would put federal arbitrators in charge of work rules and business practices for a full two years if employers and union representatives are unable to reach agreement within 120 days. In practice, this means that management and workers alike would be shut out of negotiations and prevented from having a voice in these critical decisions.

The Washington Examiner explores the underreported issue of binding arbitration in an editorial special report appearing in today’s paper.

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"With attention focused on the secret ballot issue, however, Stefan Gleason of the National Right to Work Committee worries that a possible compromise enable Democrats to also ‘ram through’ arbitration measures that would have dire economic consequences. …

"Some unions officials are hinting that they would drop Card Check, for the time being, in exchange for passing the arbitration changes, Gleason said. He is concerned that the prospects for arbitration might be improved with some ‘misdirection’ of secret ballot proponents.”

Mooney, “Critics fear Card Check is bait for compulsory arbitration,” Washington Examiner, 02.20.09

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Whether or not the “card check” component of the legislation is a ruse, workers’ rights are still in jeopardy. Binding arbitration is just another way to take away workers’ right to vote.

As The Washington Examiner revealed, there’s much more at stake than secret ballots. From the special interest payback to efforts at the state level to protect workers’ rights to card check supporters’ inexplicable support for secret ballots, but evidently only in Mexican workplaces … but more on that later.

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