May 22, 2007 04:39 PM UTC

Why "Democrat Party" works better now than "Democratic Party"

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• by: Laughing Boy

The Employee Free Choice Act.  Not only does its name mean the opposite of what the bill portends to do, it also is representative of very un-democratic principles.

The bill allows unions to represent companies with a non-secret ‘card-check’ rather than having to resort to those pesky secret ballots that seem to be such a problem for labor in the last thirty years or so.  The current secret ballot union elections are federally supervised – subject to observation to ensure fairness, whereas a ‘card check’ allows potential union members to be approached at their homes or in other intimidating circumstances to sign a card in front of a union rep.

Even if what the unions are offering is good, and valid (which is certainly debatable), how can they be believed if they need to use an aggressive non-secret method for forcing themselves on private business?

The House passed this bill in March, and the Senate is going to vote on it soon. Maybe the House Democrats should look to their own words to the Mexican government in 2001:

“We are writing to encourage you to use the secret ballot in all union recognition elections…We feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union that they might not otherwise choose.”