"Do What's Good For Ya Self and Ya Family....or Else"

From Stubborn Facts: Democrats Assault Right to Privacy, Secret Ballots

When is the right to privacy NOT sacred to Congressional Democrats? When do they find the principle of secret ballots in free and democratic elections to be a Bad Thing instead of a Good Thing?

When Big Labor tells them so, of course.

The current system is broken because employers can coerce and intimidate workers into rejecting unionization, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a phone interview this week. The House bill, he said, is "the most important improvement in labor law in many decades."

But the White House, in a statement, said the measure "would strip workers of the fundamental democratic right to a supervised private ballot election."

In many ways this is of a kind with a constant complaint we hear from Democrats and, less often, Republicans. They dislike democracy because they sometimes lose. (see this earlier post here for an example.)

From the AP:

Under the bill a company would no longer have the right to demand a secret-ballot election, overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, before a union can be certified.

The legislation also imposes tougher penalties on companies that violate the rights of workers trying to organize and sets up a binding arbitration process to prevent companies from thwarting a new union by bargaining in bad faith on an initial contract.

Unions see obstacles to organizing as a major reason union membership has dropped from 20 percent of waged and salary workers in 1983 to 12 percent in 2006. Discounting civil servants, that percentage is 7.4 percent, the Labor Department says.

This very clearly states the central premise. Union have been losing many unionizing votes and they want to change that. At all costs. But you know what? When you get to win every vote, that can be called a lot of things but never democracy.

If you are not in favor of democracy, please be up front with what you do favor.

And I have yet to see a serious argument that the current laws overseen by the NRLB doesn't cover abuses by employers.

According to the National Labor Relations Act:

RIGHTS OF EMPLOYEES

Sec. 7. [§ 157.] Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all such activities except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 8(a)(3) [section 158(a)(3) of this title].

UNFAIR LABOR PRACTICES

Sec. 8. [§ 158.] (a) [Unfair labor practices by employer] It shall be an unfair labor practice for an employer--

(1) to interfere with, restrain, or coerce employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in section 7 [section 157 of this title];

(2) to dominate or interfere with the formation or administration of any labor organization or contribute financial or other support to it: Provided, That subject to rules and regulations made and published by the Board pursuant to section 6 [section 156 of this title], an employer shall not be prohibited from permitting employees to confer with him during working hours without loss of time or pay;

(3) by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization: Provided, That nothing in this Act [subchapter], or in any other statute of the United States, shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a labor organization (not established, maintained, or assisted by any action defined in section 8(a) of this Act [in this subsection] as an unfair labor practice) to require as a condition of employment membership therein on or after the thirtieth day following the beginning of such employment or the effective date of such agreement, whichever is the later, (i) if such labor organization is the representative of the employees as provided in section 9(a) [section 159(a) of this title], in the appropriate collective-bargaining unit covered by such agreement when made, and (ii) unless following an election held as provided in section 9(e) [section 159(e) of this title] within one year preceding the effective date of such agreement, the Board shall have certified that at least a majority of the employees eligible to vote in such election have voted to rescind the authority of such labor organization to make such an agreement: Provided further, That no employer shall justify any discrimination against an employee for non-membership in a labor organization (A) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that such membership was not available to the employee on the same terms and conditions generally applicable to other members, or (B) if he has reasonable grounds for believing that membership was denied or terminated for reasons other than the failure of the employee to tender the periodic dues and the initiation fees uniformly required as a condition of acquiring or retaining membership;

(4) to discharge or otherwise discriminate against an employee because he has filed charges or given testimony under this Act [subchapter];

(5) to refuse to bargain collectively with the representatives of his employees, subject to the provisions of section 9(a) [section 159(a) of this title].

Given this as the curent state of the law, how can doing away with the secret ballot be seen as anything other than making individual employees more vulnerable to coercion and intimidation?