Card Check and the labor agenda

The 111th Congress was officially sworn in this month and will soon consider labor legislation, including "the most controversial bill that Congress tackles in the first year of the Obama administration," observed Associated Press writer Jim Abrams.

Abrams is referring to the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) or "card check" legislation. If this bill becomes law, it will take away workers' rights to a secret ballot when deciding whether to unionize, and subjects newly organized workers and their employers to mandatory binding arbitration by government mediators.

Secret ballots are an inviolable part of democracy because they allow an individual to vote his or her conscience, free from the scrutiny and pressure of others. Americans use the secret ballot to elect our public officials. Elected officials use secret ballots to elect their party leadership. And party leadership has advocated the use of secret ballots in union election processes abroad.

In a 2001 letter to Mexican government officials, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller and many other U.S. legislators advocated the "use of secret ballots in all union recognition elections" in Mexico. The 2001 letter to Mexican government officials said, "We feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose."

All workers deserve a secret ballot vote when deciding whether to unionize. Any legislative proposal that denies workers a secret ballot election or subjects workers and employers to mandatory binding arbitration is simply undemocratic.