Union Card Checks Defeat The Protection Of A Secret Ballot

As flawed as our election system is, one of the things it does right is to allow voters to cast their ballot in private.

When it comes to organizing unions, Big Labor doesn't think workers deserve that protection.

You can bet that President Obama will be called on to pay back some election favors he owes to Big Union interest very early in his first year in office.

And he has already signaled, by announcing that Hilda Solis would be his nominee for Secretary of Labor, that he intends to square his debt.

Solis has been a vocal supporter of the Card Check bill, cosmetically called the "Employee Free Choice Act", a piece of proposed legislation that union bosses are drooling to push through Congress, and onto Obama's desk. The legislation would end the practice of workers voting to unionize by secret ballot, instead forcing companies to recognize unions once a majority workers signed membership cards.

While that doesn't sound like a big change, the potential for organizers to publicly pressure or harass workers to sign cards and join unions is huge.

Being pressured in the break room at work is bad enough, but imagine sitting in a cafe after work, and having organizers harangue you for not wanting to sign up. Or maybe they caught you at the gas station, or in the grocery store. Maybe they even talk to your spouse, and attempt to get at you that way.

And the time period to apply that sort of public pressure would not be limited by a voting deadline. Organizers would simply continue to work on the hold-outs until they had a majority.

Even worse, if someone in a position of authority, say a foreman, is in favor of the union, and one his subordinates isn't, the possibility of that foreman applying far more serious pressure than embarrassment is very real. Would you swap a vote to keep your job? For many, that might be the choice the have to make.

Free choice? Hardly.

Pro business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are preparing to spend millions in opposition to the legislation. They will face an uphill battle, with Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress, and a President favorable to the bill in command of a bully pulpit.

You can expect to see our new president give a lot speeches about the bill, and portray it as being good for the American worker, the middle class, baseball, hot dogs and apple pie.

He won't say it's good for Chevrolet, though. Big Business will be cast as the evil empire in the fight, and their opposition to the bill will be likened to Darth Vader warming up the death ray as he circles the rebel moon.

Opponents of the bill will largely be forced to wage a nationwide grass roots campaign designed to bring voter pressure on Democrat representatives. That means the bulk of their money and time will be spent in democratic districts, attempting to sway pro union voters with an appeal to their basic fairness.

Seasoned political operatives working for the unions realize that, and that will be the reason to push the legislation through early and quickly. The quicker they can move the bill through Congress, the less media attention it will receive. And the earlier they can get it done, the longer voters will have to forget about it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will know that as well. The pair have shown their willingness many times to shut down debate and twist a few arms, and this will be no different.

Couple that effort with a biased national press corp openly infatuated with all things Obama, and it spells disaster for the time honored fairness of the secret union ballot.

The battle will be an early test of how well Republican Senators can play the minority party game. If they can muster a cohesive, enduring filibuster, then business groups will have a shot at spotlighting the vote, and swaying enough public sentiment to stop the charge.

The last thing Obama and company want to do is give the GOP a wedge issue for the midterm 2010 elections. They well remember the Health Care debacle, and what it did to President Clinton's first term.

Business leaders have no choice but to start the local media campaigns early, and hope there are still a few reporters at the national level who are willing to explore both sides of the issue.

And if that exploration is honest, the crux of the matter is plain to see. The issue is fairness.

This legislation is about nothing more complicated than giving Big Labor an open door to bully and strong-arm workers into swelling their membership ranks, and therefore their coffers. It will do that by ripping away the simplest protection that American voters enjoy, the secret ballot.

It is an understatement to call Card Check pro union. The reality is, it's anti-worker.

It's wrong, and for the sake of workers everywhere, it needs to be stopped.