Secret Ballot Watch

There continues to be a great deal of confusion and outright misinformation about what the card check proposal would mean for secret ballots in workplace organizing elections. Opponents of the anti-worker plan, including us, have pointed to the plain language of the legislation, which states:  

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`(6) … If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations … the Board shall not direct an election but shall certify the individual or labor organization as the representative described in subsection (a).

Text of the Employee Free Choice Act of 2009, H.R. 1409 

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However, aware that the American public overwhelmingly opposes the idea of taking away workers’ right to vote by secret ballot, supporters of this undemocratic proposal have seized on an editorial that recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal explaining the proposal and the shocking lengths its supporters will go to in trying to get it enacted. Card check supporters completely distorted the Journal’s meaning – and this morning, the Journal fought back:  

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“Our editorial last week, ‘Unionize or Die,’ has suddenly been twisted to mean that we think the Employee Free Choice Act doesn't trash the secret ballot in union organizing elections. We wrote: ‘The bill doesn't remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act but in practice makes it a dead letter.’ California Democrat George Miller and his comrades at the Service Employees International Union have taken to quoting only the first half of that sentence and claiming we've had a change of heart. …

“These guys must really be desperate. As we've written many times, ‘card check’ effectively ends secret-ballot elections because it would allow labor organizers to automatically organize a work site if more than 50% of workers sign an authorization card. Thus our words: ‘dead letter.’

“Currently, an employer can insist on a secret-ballot election if 30% of employees sign union cards. But under this proposal, if more than 50% of the authorization cards are signed, there is no election because union recognition is instant. In theory, the bill would allow for an employee to request a secret-ballot vote if cards have been signed by between 31% and 50% of workers. But only the organizers know how many cards have been signed, and they have no incentive to tell the company or employees. Why would unions risk a secret ballot when they can publicly pressure employees into signing an authorization card?”

Editorial, “George Miller Loves Us,” Wall Street Journal, 03.27.09 

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Of course, there’s one easy way to end the confusion about secret ballots in workplace organizing elections once and for all. Republicans have introduced legislation, the Secret Ballot Protection Act, that would guarantee that all future organizing elections would be conducted by secret ballot. It’s the only piece of legislation that doesn’t leave workers’ access to secret ballots vulnerable to the whims of labor bosses or corporate management. If card check supporters are serious about not denying workers the right to a secret ballot, they should endorse the Secret Ballot Protection Act. Short of that, the confusion and misinformation is sure to continue.

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