Not surprisingly, these organizers are frequently unwanted visitors. When one employee refused to answer his door, union organizers walked around his home, knocking on and peering through windows. In another case, a fight broke out inside an employee's house between the worker and the organizer who was purportedly there to help him.

Sadly, the intimidation works. Some "employees volunteered that they signed cards just to stop the pressure and harassment," Labor lawyer Clyde Jacob testified before Congress.

The solution is simple: Retain the system already in place. Today, union organizers can request an election once 30 percent of a company's workers sign union authorization cards. Employees then vote by private ballot in government-supervised elections. The process is fair, since every employee can vote his or her conscience in private.

Sure, private ballots can cause problems. It would clearly reduce controversy in the Florida case, for example, if we knew for certain which candidate each voter cast a ballot for. But under card check, workers would obviously lose more than they would gain. Secrecy allows voters to make free decisions about what's in their own best interests, secure they won't be punished for expressing the "wrong" opinion.

Workers should be free to unionize. But they must make that decision on their own, not have it made for them by Big Labor organizers. Our lawmakers owe it to workers to protect their right to a private ballot.