Under labor relations laws, workers for the past 75 years have had the right to choose by secret ballot whether to sign up to join a union.
Known as card check legislation, the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act is an effort to reverse that trend. Under card check, a union official presents a card to a worker and asks him to check whether he wants to join the union. Because the official can see the worker's choice, the procedure subjects the employee to possible intimidation and retaliation if he does not go along and sign up to join the union.
Agree or disagree
Workers should be allowed to have secret voting.
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Comments: 89
you put it that way and I don't trust that you're giving us the whole story (again)
What more is there to the story? The new bill will not allow workers to vote for or against a union secretly. I don't know how much of the story you need. Please elucidate. Thanks.
There is no question in my mind that a ballot with one side watching you vote is one subject to intimidation.
Although, when I was in a union and we were voting, we all knew how we were going to vote because we'd all argued so much with each other about it.
But, regardless, if you change the way voting is done then there has to be a very good reason for it.
"If card check is enacted, the political makeup of the country could change dramatically because more unionization means more contributions will be going to candidates who are Democrats."
the above quote is from
http://www.newsmax.com/kessler/acorn_secret_ballot/2009/03/04/188224.html
My mother was actually told if she voted union and they found out she'd be fired. This is common practice, they'll find some other reason (like performance after 25 years now they are unhappy...) to get those people out.
So sad and anti American.
I am for a fair SECRET vote.
But now they are almost extinct and they don't have any power. So if they put any legislation up that goes through to their benefit that will be a big change - since - Reagan ???
Excuse my language but that's BS!! Card check wont change the political make up, that's more fear please don't fall for it.
But I will admit it would make it harder for republican business orders to stuff the ballot boxed, they'd have to return to buying votes.
Not nice when the tables are turned huh? Not being mean but this has little to do with Dem or Rep.
The way it is now, both sides are kept in the dark about how voted how... as it should be.
I've never heard a single argument that justifies robbing workers of their right to a secret ballot.
Amen Peter!
We have been business owners (bar/restaurants) since 1987. We are in Minnesota which means our employees ( even tipped employees) must be paid minimum wage. So they earn minumum plus good tips. If we ever had to unionize, we would just close the door and walk away. There just isn't enough money there to do all of that.
I vote for secret ballots! I have YET to hear an argument in the workplace where I work that justifies this.
The Arbitration Gamble
Why Businesses Are Leery of Binding Arbitration
Tough Love for Labor Unions
Union Sticks and Stones
"Unions should not be imposed where they are simply not wanted, and the NLRA says that a union should be recognized only where a majority of workers desire union representation. Having the employer, instead of the workers, decide whether or not an election is necessary makes sense if you assume that the employer would never want a union if it can avoid having one. This is an error. Workers have at times opposed unionization even when management supports it. There is nothing so bad about our labor law that it cannot be made worse in the name of standing up for the little guy, who is presumed to want a union even when he doesn’t.
The union argument for card check boils down to the assertion that something has gone terribly wrong with the election process because unions are not winning as many elections as they think they should. Union officials claim that this is happening because employers let go of union supporters, wrongfully threaten plant closings and hire consultants to manage their anti-union campaigns.
Management already is prevented by law from threatening to close a plant if a workplace unionizes. The law does, however, quite appropriately allow employers to tell workers about the possible consequences of union actions. The hiring of anti-union consultants is little more than the company finding advisors who can help it put together an effective presentation and avoid legal trouble. Managers are people, too, and they have First Amendment rights, including the right to tell employees about the possible downside of unions."
That's why the ballot is secret in the first place. So, votes won't be swayed and there won't be intimidation.
I say, the secret vote should stay.
I think this is probably the wrong way to strengthen the unions which do need strengthening.
Supporters say that “card check” organizing simply makes it easier for the employee to organize, but opponents of the legislation – including former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern – warn that the legislation would do away with the secret ballot.
My husband once worked for a non-union trucking company, which, by the way, I put out of business.....yes, one person, ME, put an entire company out because they were paying their employees with "bounced" checks.....I was the only one who had any "guts" tor turn them in........I went to one of my Senators, told him the situation, within 30 minutes after we hung up, the U.S. Wage and Labor Board was down in Kansas City......investigating.......they, in turn, called in the IRS....yes, the IRS, and within 48 hours, the company was shut down and padlocked for good.......
Yep, the company I put out of business was C&M Transportation!!!!! It was non-union.....my husband got "punished" two years of retirement for going to work there, but, at the time he had no choice, as Consolidated Freightways went bankrupt (he drove for them for 27 years!).......
So, yes, indeed, unions are very, very important to this country, yes, indeed!
Flying by so I can get to everyone that I can, sorry about the generics, but count this comment as a pitch in to my mom's birthday present, and her birthday is April 3. thanks, and thank you for being my gather friend and for sharing, making gather go round and round.
So your premise, below the title, is false.
I'd say for the most part the car, the refrigerator, and the modern meat dept in the local grocery store did away with the horse and buggy, the ice box, and the live chicken squawk on the back porch by default simply because most people chose to do those things the new easier way.
It'll be the same with "card check." It will most certainly do away with the secret ballot. Whether by design or by default, losing the secret ballot would do more harm than good over the long haul.
Supporters say that “card check” organizing simply makes it easier for the employee to organize, but opponents of the legislation – including former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern – warn that the legislation would do away with the secret ballot.
Mary Bradley McCauley , Mar 15, 2009, 9:15pm EDT
It doesn't prevent secret ballots.
Gary Gentry, Mar 15, 2009, 8:58pm EDT
"The accusation that employers are more likely to let go of union supporters is a serious one, but the unions’ case here isn’t as compelling as it might seem. First, union advocates frequently cite the results of a single survey of union organizers by the University of Illinois at Chicago suggesting that 30 percent of employers let go of union supporters; meaning that, by the admission of union organizers, more than two-thirds of employers don’t resort to firing union supporters. For the remaining minority of employers there is good reason to believe that most of these firings are for legitimate reasons. Discriminatory firing of a union supporter is already an unfair labor practice, but in the majority of cases the union did not file a ULP complaint against the employer with the National Labor Relations Board."
so I am neutral
From "Union Sticks and Stones" above:
"Managers are people, too, and they have First Amendment rights, including the right to tell employees about the possible downside of unions."
And one of the possible downsides that owners like Teresa's hubbie and my hubbie may have the terribly sad 'right' to tell employees is exactly this:
"If we ever had to unionize, we would just close the door and walk away. There just isn't enough money there to do all of that."
I can vote out big governement and I can't vote out big business
Rory Houlihan , Mar 15, 2009, 11:27pm EDT
Having said so, I think unions are partly to blaim for the mess the car companies are in. I have two dear friends who worked for GM until one retired and the other had to go on disability. He was making over $100,000 a year to put in two screws. Now that he is retired at full pay, he is not worried that GM goes belly up. The union has it in his contract that the government will pay his salary/pension if that happens.
Who's fault was that? Business does what business does .. it was *us* ... *we* jumped into that cauldron full tilt in panic mode; passing the "bailout" and the "stimulus" without much thought or eyes-on the "details".
Haste makes waste. But we are ignoring a lot of the old sayings these days. Another that applies to the stimulus, the bailout, and most probably to this "budget" silliness run-around ... "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread".
We are fools for allowing this stuff. And both the Bush Admin and the Obama Admin are filled with fools for proposing and rushing in panic to pass them.
Business? Business does what business does. Make money and take care of contractual obligations. Or they fail.
Government on the other hand ... lately it seems like what government does best is pass the buck instead it stopping with them (another old saying implying that Obama et al as well as Bush passed the buck on their responsibilities irt that money. They handed it out too fast with too little thinking on their part, and too much pressure from *us* to {{{JUST DO SOMETHING!!}}}). It seems to me as if those bonuses were a government panic-mode problem, not a card check/union/management problem.
AIG gave how many millions this week in bonuses to their top, but laid off how many 10,000+?
Rory Houlihan , Mar 15, 2009, 11:27pm EDT
Although my husband is a police officer and has no choice in the matter. You must be a member of the local FOP and they take the dues out of your pay check.
In some States people don't have to join the union but have to get the same benefits. That's so unfair.
Open shops are places where people may join the union or not as they please. This is a better solution than the all-or-nothing approach we see now.
Also, Mary, please don't use Newsmax as a source. If anything here is deceptively named, it is Newsmax, which is anything but news.
Unions lose the majority of secret ballots so this makes it look like they are still preserving it while in reality making it very hard to get.
Charles Temm JR , Mar 16, 2009, 5:28pm EDT
May The LORD of lords, The King of kings, The Creator of Heaven and Earth Bless you and your family & there Family in a Mighty Way, In the name of JESUS CHRIST.
agree...esp. for the retaliation and harrassment
voting is someone's personal opinion. personal choice and they should have the right of privacy.
It is more proof that freedom of choice is not something union leaders respect. They want force, plain and simple.
They are no better than the robber barons the union leaders of the past fought against.