Democrats Assault Secret Ballots, Right to Privacy (T)
When is the right to privacy NOT sacred to Congressional Democrats? When do they find the principle of secret ballots in free and democratic elections to be a Bad Thing instead of a Good Thing? When Big Labor tells them so, of course.
The current system is broken because employers can coerce and intimidate workers into rejecting unionization, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a phone interview this week. The House bill, he said, is "the most important improvement in labor law in many decades."
But the White House, in a statement, said the measure "would strip workers of the fundamental democratic right to a supervised private ballot election." Substituting a card check mechanism under which unions would get bargaining rights as soon as a majority of workers at a plant sign approval cards, "would turn back the clock 60 years and return us to a failed system."
Related op/ed from the Wall Street Journal Online:
Democrats vote to bar secret union ballots
The House of Representatives has scheduled a vote as early as today on a bill that strips 140 million U.S. workers of the right to decide in private whether to unionize. Naturally, it's called the Employee Free Choice Act....
....In the 1950s, 35% of private-sector workers were unionized. By the early 1980s the number had fallen to 20%, and today it stands at just 7.4%. The reason for this decline isn't illegal management meddling in organizing efforts. The problem is that unions haven't been able to persuade the workers themselves.
Yep. And now they want the "ballot" to be public rather than secret, so they know who needs "persuading." As I wrote elsewhere a while ago, there's more going on here than meets the eye.
[Cross-posted to Stubborn Facts.]
Just had an overview of Labor Laws in my Employment Law class.
Love the Orwellian "Employee Free Choice Act," as if repealing the secret-ballot election law would enhance "free choice."
Posted by: baldilocks | March 02, 2007 at 12:55 PM