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Wednesday, August 13, 2008
For some, right to secret ballot could be lost
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wal-Mart, the company that liberals love to hate, their George W. Bush and Big Oil of corporate America, has summoned department heads and store managers to meetings with human-resources managers to warn against a bill now before Congress that would make it easy for unions to get their foot in the door.
The percentage of private-sector workers who belong to unions is in a tailspin, down from more than 16 percent in 1985 to 7.5 percent last year. To counter that, organized labor had its Democrats introduce legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act. It’s been around since 2003, but has new life now that Barack Obama has a real shot at taking the White House. Organized Labor is mounting a major push to get him elected.
Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest private employer. It has aggressively resisted efforts to unionize its stores. When the United Food and Commercial Workers succeeded in organizing meat cutters at a store in Texas eight years ago, the company opted to phase them out in favor of prepackaged meats.
The conversations Wal-Mart officials had with its store managers and department heads warning against the legislation were legit. But they nonetheless sent unionists into a tizzy. Richard Ray, president of the Georgia AFL-CIO, called it “unfair corporate bullying” and proceeded to argue that it’s a really bad company in need of the Employee Free Choice Act.
That propose act gives back to organized labor all that it has lost and more. It allows unions to gain representation simply by gathering up and submitting signed authorization cards from a majority of the work force. There’d be no secret vote where workers declare their preferences, as they do in local, state and national elections.
The union could simply intimidate enough workers to force them to sign union cards and that’d be it. So much for free choice. So much for privacy in voting.
The Employee Free Choice Act is an awful bill. It stacks the deck. It takes from workers the right to make a free choice in the privacy of the voting booth. It’s one more reason the November election matters.
