Secret Ballots May End in Union Elections If Obama Becomes President

[Omaha Steve]

Note this FOX story is inacruate about the way the act would be done. Here is the true info: http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/ecouncil/ec03042008l.cfm

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,356643,00.html

Monday, May 19, 2008

By John R. Lott, Jr.

How would you like elections without secret ballots? To most people, the notion of getting rid of secret ballots is absurd. This is modern-day America. Such an idea could not be seriously considered, right?

People support secret balloting for very obvious reasons. Politics frequently generates hot tempers. People can put up yard signs or wear political buttons if they want. But not everyone feels comfortable making his or her political positions public. Many would rather vote without fearing that their choice will offend or anger someone else.

Secret balloting has solved another potential problem: vote buying, which they essentially ended in U.S. elections. After all, why pay people if you couldn't be sure how they voted?

But if Barack Obama becomes president, secret ballots seem destined to end for at least one type of election: union certifications.

Currently, when 50 percent of workers in a company sign statements to unionize, that merely sets up a second stage, where workers vote by secret ballot to determine if the company would be unionized. Under the new proposal, using a system called “Card Check,” unionization would occur as soon as half the workers had signed cards stating that they favor union representation.

In other words, up until now, a worker could placate union supporters and sign a statement saying that he wanted a union and then vote against the union when he was protected by the secrecy of the voting booth.

While the Bush administration promised to veto the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act,” Obama has made his feelings about the legislation very clear. Last year, Obama promised, “We will pass the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s not a matter of 'if'; it’s a matter of 'when.' We may have to wait for the next president to sign it, but we will get this thing done.”

FULL story at link.

[glowing]

1. How funny that they put it in a way that suggests most people would NOT vote

for a Union. I don't know enough about the legislation.. I'd like to see it.. Also, who wrote it and does it provide a way for "right to work states" to unionize?

[Adsos Letter]

2. I read the link...

but I will admit that I still don't understand why secret ballots are a bad thing...on the face of it, it sounds like it protects workers from intimidation by either capital or labor...what am I missing here?

EDIT to add: I strongly support unions and unionization; I just don't understand why secret balloting is bad.

[Omaha Steve]

3. The time frame to the election AFTER a majority of workers say yes...

The delay gives companies time to illegally twist arms and make promises or threats. I know. I was fired illegally in an organization attempt in 1980. It took 3 and 1/2 years of court action to win my case. But it stopped the union after a majority said yes in meetings and on the cards. Today a similar case takes 5-7 to get to the US Appeals Court like I did. Simply having a majority of signed cards under act still doesn't mean a contract will happen.

[Adsos Letter]

4. But, doesn't a secret ballot allow employees...

who have been subject to intimidation by ownership/bosses/management, etc., the ability to go ahead and vote to unionize without fear of retaliation?
I realize you have been through this and I have not; my questions are sincere, if ignorant.

[Earth Bound Misfit]

5. If you want an ACCURATE report on Union Representation elections and how they fail to ...

even REMOTELY resemble the Democratic Election Process, read University of Oregon political scientist Gordon Lafer's report: Free And Fair? How Labor Law Fails U.S. Democratic Election Standards
Link: http://www.morsechair.uoregon.edu/_pdfs/residential_scholars/Lafer%20Free%20and%20Fair%20Article.pdf


Recent debates on labor law reform have focused on how we best bring elections for union
representation in line with the norms of U.S. democracy. One side argues that the current National Labor Relations Board system must restrict all forms of union recognition to the process of a secret ballot election to safeguard democracy. Others assert that the secret ballot is not enough to guarantee a free and fair election.

American Rights at Work commissioned University of Oregon political scientist Gordon Lafer to
investigate how current union election procedures measure up to U.S. democratic standards. Lafer
engaged in a thorough examination of the political philosophy and published works of the founders, the historical development of electoral law and jurisprudence, and current statutes and regulations that define "free and fair” elections.

Lafer concludes that union representation elections fall alarmingly short of living up to the most
fundamental tenets of democracy. The inclusion of a secret ballot does not change the fact that the process as a whole is fundamentally broken and unfair.

[Adsos Letter]

6. Thankyou for the info and link. n/t

[Earth Bound Misfit]

8. You're welcome! n/t

:hi:

[Earth Bound Misfit]

7. FUX NOISE?? INACCURATE??? I'M SHOCKED!! SHOCKED, I SAY!!

:puke:

A little about the "author" of the article from Sourcewatch: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=John_Lott

John Lott is a right-wing author who has made claims about the benefits of guns using fabricated evidence. To support his points on the Internet, he adopts various pseudonyms (known as sock puppets) who write in supporting John Lott and giving his books good reviews.

Lott is Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, where he "studies crime, antitrust, education, gun control, campaign finance, and voting and legislative behavior".

Lott has given himself seventeen five-star reviews using various techniques to conceal that he was the author. He's also written concealed negative reviews of books whose authors he didn't like. ...He has posed as another person and posted defenses of himself on discussion groups, under false names like "Mary Rosh". ("I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had," Rosh gushed in one Internet posting. "There were a group of us students who would try to take any class that he taught. Lott finally had to tell us that it was best for us to try and take classes from other professors.")

Unmasked by bloggers, he conceded "I shouldn?'t have used . He later told the Washington Post, "I probably shouldn't have done it -- I know I shouldn't have done it -- but it's hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously."

What a FV%$#NG TOOL!!!