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Secret Ballots versus Card Check: Is that the Real Issue?

By Joel Wendland

Archives - Dates and Topics

2007 – online

May – June 2007

May 21 – May 27 click here for related stories: labor movement

5-23-07, 9:57 am

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Edwards just endorsed a bill pending before Oregon's state legislature that would enable state employees to win the right to union representation and collective bargaining by having a majority in a workplace sign a membership card or a petition for it.

Sen. Edwards wrote a letter to Oregon's AFL-CIO saying:

HB 2891 would allow public sector workers in Oregon to form a union and bargain collectively if a majority of workers sign cards expressing that desire. I am convinced that if individuals can join the Republican or Democratic Parties by simply signing their names to a card, any worker in America ought to be able to join a union by doing exactly the same thing.

By protecting a worker’s right to join a union, we give more Americans the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty and into the middle class, which is why I have been all over this country the past few years working with over 20 national unions organizing thousands of workers into unions.

The bill, known as the Majority Sign-up Bill, is a smaller-scale version of the national Employee Free Choice Act which passed by a large bipartisan majority in the House last March.

Edwards has also endorsed the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

While national momentum for passage of the EFCA has grown, the bill has come under sharp attack by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the powerful lobbying arm of corporate America, and a host of anti-worker right-wing think tanks, corporate lobbyists, Republican politicians, and websites with obscure affiliations.

While the NAM opposes any law that would protect the right of workers to bargain collectively, it pretends that its opposition to the bill has only to do with the issue of "secret ballots." By allowing workers to join a union and have it designated as their collective bargaining representation simply by having a majority of the workers sign a membership card, the NAM argues, the current "secret ballot" process is subverted.

Tell Your Senator to Pass the Employee Free Choice Act

Private ballots "are the cornerstone of democracy," says the high-minded NAM, which is then parroted by right-wing business leaders and the Republican members of Congress they pay for.

But NAM's claim is a complete misrepresentation of the bill and of the failures of the current union certification process.

As it is now, the union certification process already requires a majority of the workers to sign a membership card, unless the boss chooses otherwise by voluntarily recognizing the union. The current setup also gives the employer, many of whom are dues paying members of the NAM, about 6 weeks to strong-arm workers into voting against the union on the "secret ballot."

Contrary to the NAM's proclaimed fervor for secrecy, the current system gives employers the opportunity to identify pro-union workers, and harass, threaten, and even fire them without much intervention from the authorities. Sympathetic workers are also threatened. Employers hold mandatory "captive audience" meetings during which all of the horrors of joining a union – such as forcing the plant to close and move to Mexico – are discussed as open threats. Veiled threats of violence are circulated.

This kind of anti-union activity happens all the time, despite usually being illegal. Indeed, the current system is supposed to punish employers who coerce workers into voting against the union, but punishments are slight and fail to deter the company. Human Rights Watch's recent report about Wal-Mart's violations of workers rights is an excellent account of how the process of organizing and certifying unions actually works today.

By contrast, the Employee Free Choice Act would stiffen penalties against companies who break laws against coercion and harassment. It also creates more avenues for mediation when either side refuses to bargain in good faith.

But the issue of "card check" versus "secret ballots" is the main item that the NAM, anti-worker think tanks, and right-wing politicians have most blatantly misrepresented. The law would give workers the choice, hence the name of the bill, as to how they want to certify their union. They can choose to do so through card check or through secret ballot.

And despite moralistic proclamations to the contrary, the NAM's main point of disagreement with this bill is not the issue of "secret ballots." Corporate leaders hate the bill because it shifts "choice" on how to certify and organize unions away from bosses to workers. Simple as that.

The fact that the NAM would mislead the public and Congress about the secret ballot issue isn't surprising. But it suggests that all those Republican Senators like Orrin Hatch (UT), Mike Enzi (WY), Norm Coleman (MN), and others who have use the NAM's line as the reasoning for their opposition to the bill are also either misleading their constituents or are failing to do their job in actually studying what a bill that they have taken a position on actually says.

On a side note of relatively minor importance, the Socialist Worker's Party has also opposed the EFCA, for reasons similar to the NAM. In a recent issue of that party's newspaper, the editors say: "secret-ballot union representation elections because it’s the most effective way for workers to demonstrate what they want."

Hey people! Let's get the story straight and fight WITH working people for a better life.

--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and can be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net

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