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Card check does not "take away" a worker's right to a secret ballot; it offers an alternative. |
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this apparent "choice" and why is a non-secret ballot offered as an alternative to a secret ballot? It is truly puzzling as to why the left makes this curious opportunity for Americans to give up their previously hard won right to secrecy in voting. Nothing beats innocent acquiescence to totalitarian rule. |
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Do you really think that a union will allow secret ballots? If you do then the political parties should have the 'option' to demand open ballots for all elections. |
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"Do you really think that a union will allow secret ballots?"
If they get less than 50% signatures in the card check, they have no choice but to have a secret ballot. Currently they can't even do that if they don't first get 30% signatures on the cards.
Note, too, that card check allows the worker to send a letter to the NLRB monitor revoking his signature. So if someone feels he was intimidated by his fellow workers into signing, he can negate his vote in secret. The effect is the same as a secret ballot.
"If you do then the political parties should have the 'option' to demand open ballots for all elections."
Card check isn't "casting a vote," it's "signing a petition." As when you sign a petition to put someone on the ballot and then vote against them in secret in the election, you can sign the card and then revoke it in secret.
"why is a non-secret ballot offered as an alternative to a secret ballot?"
It's redundant to have a ballot when more than 50% of the workers have already signed the card stating that they're in favor of unionization. Employers want the ballot too because it gives them a chance to intimidate employees to vote against it. |
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our basic right to a secret ballot.
"he can negate his vote in secret. The effect is the same as a secret ballot."
“Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive”
~Sir Walter Scott |
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with all due respect, you are such a tool. |
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bob,
I am confused. You said...
"Card check isn't "casting a vote," it's "signing a petition." As when you sign a petition to put someone on the ballot and then vote against them in secret in the election,..."
Then you say...
"It's redundant to have a ballot when more than 50% of the workers have already signed the card stating that they're in favor of unionization."
On another note, you say...
"Employers want the ballot too because it gives them a chance to intimidate employees to vote against it."
I say..."A dog always smells its own poo first!" |
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I know how the system works. I have both worked for a union and fought a union in my days. The whole process should be secret, period. Employees should be protected from all harrassment. And trying to twist the card check system into a secret ballot is a contortion you should be proud of.
People will sign cards because they are unaware of the process, they feel intimidated (not saying they have been acively intimated) or just to get along. By the time the real vote for organization comes up they may very well change their minds or may not have wanted to be organized in the first place. A secret ballot protects the employee from harrassment from both the management and the organizing body.
"Employers want the ballot too because it gives them a chance to intimidate employees to vote against it." This statement is simple lunacy. |
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"The whole process should be secret, period."
It never has been before. Unions ALWAYS had to get 30% of employees to sign the cards to get a ballot. Now it's proposed that if they get 50%, the ballot isn't necessary because they already have shown that a majority is in favor. In fact, they normally get 70%-90%, but are forced to do a secret ballot anyway, giving the employer time to pressure the employees, transfer or fire the leaders for "unrelated" reasons, give in to some of the demands, etc.
Why shouldn't a union be allowed to conduct its business however it wants?
"And trying to twist the card check system into a secret ballot is a contortion you should be proud of."
Did I say anything that isn't true?
Unions are the part of "free capitalism" that the right-wing doesn't like: corporations should have complete freedom to do whatever they want, but their employees shouldn't. It's a hangover from the days that the Republican party was completely controlled by the corporations. |
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Although I do not have a "dog in this race", several of my friends do! You are WRONG.
"H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007, sponsored by Rep. George Miller (D - CA), and, S. 1041, the Employee Free Choice Act of 2007, sponsored by Senator Edward Kennedy (D - MA)" DOES NOT GIVE AN ALTERNATIVE. It does "take away" a worker's right to a secret ballot!!!
You will have a bunch of hulky, intimating, union men (who resemble Sumo wrestlers) knock at your door (*incessantly) asking you to sign (while sneering) their petition. *If you refuse intially, they will start their stalking routine: this, reportedly, has occured.
Hey Bob........do you research pre: debating!!! |
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"DOES NOT GIVE AN ALTERNATIVE. It does "take away" a worker's right to a secret ballot!!!"
Nah, under current law if the union gets over 30% of employees to sign the cards, they can then hold a secret ballot to decide whether or not to unionize. Under the proposed law, if they get over 50% they don't have to hold the secret ballot. They still could if they wanted to.
"You will have a bunch of hulky, intimating, union men (who resemble Sumo wrestlers) knock at your door (*incessantly) asking you to sign (while sneering) their petition."
So sign the card, then after they leave drop a note to the NLRB rescinding it.
Your description was extremely evocative of both Sally Field and Ron Leibman. Sneering sumo wrestlers. |
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"It never has been before. Unions ALWAYS had to get 30% of employees to sign the cards to get a ballot."
I never said it had been secret, I said it should be. I know why card system exists.
"Why shouldn't a union be allowed to conduct its business however it wants?"
For the same reason a company can't conduct its business however it wants.
"Unions are the part of "free capitalism" that the right-wing doesn't like:"
I have no problems with the existance of unions. Unions have done tremendous good for the working class of this country. They have also done tremendous harm to both workers and corporations. If you refuse to see the harm they have done that is your blindness. And more workers than not agree with me. Union membership is down. That is why big labor wants to change the laws that were designed to already give them an advantage over business (and needfully so). Workers are rejecting unions and they only way they can see to bring them back into the fold is to be able to pressure them with open ballots. |
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"Under the proposed law, if they get over 50% they don't have to hold the secret ballot. They still could if they wanted to."
This is a lie, sir, and you know it. It goes directly against what you said earlier. If they get over 50% there won't BE a secret ballot at all.
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"This is a lie, sir, and you know it. It goes directly against what you said earlier. If they get over 50% there won't BE a secret ballot at all."
They could still have one, just as any union can hold a secret ballot to disestablish itself at any time now. There just wouldn't be any reason to do so, because the 50% score means the effort has succeeded. That's what the union WANTS.
"Workers are rejecting unions"
Not generally true. |
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to explain that in 2007, "Union members accounted for 12.1 percent of employed wage and salary workers, essentially unchanged from 12.0 percent in 2006. In 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent."
~Bureau of Labor Statistics
I forgot that in the liberal lexicon, when the percentage gets substantially lower it actually means that something is not generally true. Sorry.
Screwtape is correct.
Munck is generally wrong. |
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Bob you are a tool. From the arguments, dude you are out of your league. These arguments are enought to bring defeat on the floor of Congress. And to add pressure, the "Lieberman problem" being solved by SECRET BALLOT! How lame is that? Not to mention hypocritical. |
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"in 2007 ... Union members accounted for 12.1 percent ... In 1983 ... the rate was 20.1 percent."
In 24 years the workforce has shifted into jobs that are much less likely to have unions: service industries, IT, office workers, etc. There's no doubt that our heavy industry and product-based industry has largely moved overseas or vanished in that time. Screwtape said that "workers are rejecting unions;" that means that it has been a matter of choice on their part. It has not. Your logic is faulty.
Some of the weaker thinkers on this thread seem to be arguing that having secret ballots anywhere under any conditions is somehow an argument that unions should be required to have them even if more than 50% of their membership has already indicated their preference. I am quite certain that if half of the Democratic caucus had come out publicly to throw Lieberman out, they wouldn't bother with a secret ballot. Likewise if a bill is co-sponsored by more than half the membership of the House, they don't bother to have a roll-call vote. |
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are the framework of fair elections.....
non-secret ballots are subject to harassment and peer pressure.......
I'm not a "union" or a "non-union" person per se........
I have worked under both conditions.....
however if the unions want to look "aboveboard", they should reject this card check sham as vehemently as the non-union people do.... |
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"Secret ballots are the framework of fair elections."
THIS ISN'T AN ELECTION. There are no candidates to win and lose; no one is being elected. There will be no victor to use his newly-won office to extract retribution on those who voted against him. There will be no losers to be angry at their friends who voted for the winner. There's no one for it to be "fair" or "unfair" TO.
The situation is that more than half of the population has already publicly supported forming a union. Everybody knows who they are; they signed their names to the petition. If you then hold a secret ballot and it passes, what secrets did the ballot keep? Everybody knows who most of the people who voted for it are -- the signers. Everybody knows who most of the people who voted against it are -- the non-signers.
"if the unions want to look "aboveboard", they should reject this card check sham"
How do they not appear "aboveboard" by skipping an unnecessary ballot? What's the violation of ethical behavior?
"as vehemently as the non-union people do."
It's not "non-union people" opposing it; it's corporations that don't want to be unionized despite the fact than more than half of their employees want a union. They want a long delay and a second chance to bring pressure to bear. |
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