You can see the discussion of
my latest Fox News op-ed on the Daily Kos
here. Bold italics is from my article. Italics is from the Daily Kos comments.
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?
All in favor of keeping secret ballots as the exclusive way to vote, raise your hands (snark). Caucuses are a strong way to elect a candidate by discussing pros/and cons and advocating for your choice. Petitions to make our government support our causes are not anonymous. Secrecy is unhealthy and bad for democracy. Secrecy lets people sell their vote, and not stand up for their beliefs. When secrecy is the law of the land, we will be a nation of cowards.
But more importantly, this first sentence has nothing to do with what Obama and a majority of Senators have not so secretly voted for with the Employee Free Choice Act. The EFCA does not do away with secret ballot elections. It leaves secret ballot elections as an option for employees, but strengthens the penalties for violating the current law, and requires employers to accept the results of a valid majority card check election. If employers suspect illegal coercion of employees, they can challenge a card check election.
Here is how even the Senate Democrats
describe the legislation:
EFCA does not strip workers of their right to choose a secret-ballot election to decide whether to select -- or not to select -- a union representative. EFCA simply gives workers the additional option of selecting a union representative by majority sign-up.
Under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), there are three ways for workers to form a union:
1) By secret-ballot: The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) will conduct a secret-ballot election to select a bargaining representative if at least 30 percent of workers have signed a petition or authorization cards in favor of a union. If a majority of workers voting select a particular union, the NLRB will certify that union as the employees’ bargaining representative. EFCA does not change this process.
2) By voluntary card-check recognition: An employer can voluntarily decide to recognize a union representative if a majority of employees have signed authorization cards in favor of the union. EFCA does not change this process.
3) By NLRB-ordered recognition: As a last resort, the NLRB can order an employer who has engaged in unfair labor practices that make a fair election unlikely to recognize a labor union if a majority of employees have signed authorization cards in favor of the union. EFCA does not change this process.
If you get 30 percent of workers to sign cards, there is an election. If you get 50 percent, there is no election. Previously, it was up to the employer at that point to have an election. When they say that "EFCA does not change this process" they are just saying if the employer decided not to go forward with an election.
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?
Hmmm. Interesting premise. Of course, secret balloting does make vote stealing possible. After all how could you steal an election if you knew how everyone voted? But fortunately Diebold doesn't administer secret ballot elections for unions, and again, Obama isn't suggesting doing away with the option for employees to choose a secret ballot process to form a union. More likely vote buying was essentially ended because it is illegal and prosecuted. I didn't even know that U.S. elections were at one time not secret.
The point raised here about stealing elections they way that they mention have nothing to do with secret ballots. Even with secret ballots, the question is how they are counted. If counted votes are altered, that can be true whether you have secret ballots or not. Possibly the Democrats don't know how secret ballots are counted. But with the signed cards, they are turned in and then counted. The person who signed them does not stay with their card the entire time until all the cards are counted.
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.
Two important words make this statement a lie:
"New." Card check is not new. U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of card check in 1969 stating, "Almost from the inception of the Act, then, it was recognized that a union did not have to be certified as the winner of a Board election to invoke a bargaining obligation; it could establish majority status by other means ... by showing convincing support, for instance, by a union-called strike or strike vote, or, as here, by possession of cards signed by a majority of the employees authorizing the union to represent them for collective bargaining purposes.'
I was referring to the "new proposal" that used the card check. I do not believe I wrote that the card check was new.
"Would." This should be "could", since employees could choose a NLRB secret ballot election if they prefer anonymity and didn't mind waiting a few years to be able to negotiate for better wages and benefits. If they wanted to make that process shorter, they could use card check to negotiate a contract, which would have to be ratified by a majority of employees using "secret ballot." So the charges that a union could be elected by fraud is moot. You can't force employees to strike or accept a contract, or do anything that would give a union power over an employer unless the majority of employees are willing participants. Decertifying a union by card check is just as easy as forming one.
If 30 percent of employees sign the cards, they get a secret ballot. If 50 percent sign, no secret ballot. None of this responds to the point in my piece.
Daily Kos throws around the term lies a lot when they are not able to accurately discuss the issues here. The Poll that they have at the end of the discussion is fairly weird. There is no really good answer though the second one about the GOP is at least true. It would be nice if they included an option such as, it makes some workers better off at the expense of other workers who lose their jobs.
Thinking Right has
this comment:
Democrats accuse Republicans of favoring “Big Oil,” “Big Tobacco,” and “Big Pharmaceutical,” but why doesn’t the Mainstream Media ever refer to the Democrats love of “Big Union”?
