Secret ballot argument against Employee Free Choice Act is a canard

[Earth Bound Misfit]

http://www.examiner.com/x-2071-DC-Special-Interests-Examiner~y2009m1d13-Secret-ballot-argument-against-Employee-Free-Choice-is-a-canard

January 13, 9:09 PM
by Ron Moore, DC Special Interests Examiner

Opponents of the right to organize have framed their message against the Employee Free Choice Act as a defense of the secret ballot. It’s ironic that employers who spy on their employees, listen in on their phone calls and monitor their computer use have developed a sudden sensitivity to the right to privacy. The Employee Free Choice Act adds the right to choose to go to directly the bargaining table after a simple card check procedure. Workers can still choose to use the current method of holding an NLRB election at their work site. But it’s the workers’ choice how to exercise that right.

Of course the opponents of the right to organize know their secret ballot argument is a canard. What they hope is that the American people and the media don’t notice that they are being manipulated in a rhetorical Ponzi scheme. Anyone who has been an organizer as I have knows that the pressure is applied by the employer not the organizer. Anyone who has been a worker on an organizing drive at their workplace as I have knows that the employer monitors your every move in an attempt to intimidate and tamp down any union conversation. Anyone was has been terminated for union activities by their employer as I have knows that a great price can be paid for leading an organizing drive.

In other words, the current process and the current management culture encouraged by the opponents of the right to organize creates an incentive for only one side to be negative: the employer. But if the union busters can no longer charge their extortionate fees to bog down the process suddenly everyone finds a way to move forward together.

In the following video, Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon, http://www.examiner.com/x-2071-DC-Special-Interests-Examiner~y2009m1d13-Secret-ballot-argument-against-Employee-Free-Choice-&feature=player_embedded">discusses how employers and their "union-avoidance" consultants have undermined secret ballots under current NLRB election rules.


Ron Moore is a freelance writer living in Silver Spring, Maryland with decades of service in the grassroots community as a local union president, union organizer, national AFL-CIO staff, and writer for the A. Philip Randolph Institute