Big Labor Versus Workplace Democracy

The obvious answer is to stop employees from voting. Bruce Raynor of the union UNITE HERE said simply: "There's no need to subject the workers to an election." Providing intellectual cover for this Soviet-style approach was the Nation magazine: "Simple recognition when a majority of workers sign cards is a more democratic process" than holding an election. Black is white. Voting is undemocratic.

The solution to labor is called “card check.” If unions can convince a majority of workers to sign up, the union wins. No vote is necessary.

Labor claims that companies intimidate outspoken labor activists, but the NLRB finds few cases of retaliatory firings. Real intimidation comes from union activists, who routinely pressure workers to sign up. Organizers often deceive employees as well, saying that the cards are only requests for information.

Worker complaints are legion. Female employees appear to be particular targets for intimidation. For instance in a case against the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, housekeeper Faith Jetter filed a court declaration detailing union harassment: calls to her home, pressure to sign the card, and of organizers seeking personal information on her and misleading other employees on the meaning of signing. She explained: “If this union was going to come into the workplace, I would absolutely want to have a secret ballot election so that me [sic] and my fellow employees could vote our consciences in private, without being pressured by the union representative. I would also want to hear all sides of the story, not just the union’s side.”

But that’s not what labor organizers want. Mark Mix of the National Right to Work Committee warns that “Without even the limited protections of secret ballot elections, card-check allows aggressive unions to acquire monopoly bargaining privileges in an environment that makes it nearly impossible for employees to say ‘no’ to unionization.”

Workers have a right to join a union. But they also have a right not to join. The best way to determine what workers want is to let them vote. Congress should reject the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which is an attack on workers’ basic right to choose.