Legislation poses threat to secret ballot, U.S. jobs

Union leaders nationally are desperate. With membership falling throughout the private sector -- from 21.5 percent of the workforce in Missouri 25 years ago to 9.3 percent today -- unions have turned toward an Orwellian-named proposed federal legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act.

The unions are promoting the act as the best method to increase membership and improve wages and working conditions. But don't be fooled. This initiative would kill U.S. jobs and send even more jobs overseas. Perhaps most insidiously, the proposal would eliminate secret-ballot voting for employees deciding whether they want to create a union.

Employees currently have two ways of forming a union. If at least 30 percent sign union cards, there must be a secret-ballot vote overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.

If at least 50 percent sign the cards, the NLRB must certify the union. However, the employer has a right to call for a secret-ballot election in those cases. Under the proposed legislation, that authority would be stripped away from the employer.

In the vast majority of cases, employers require a secret ballot because they are concerned about intimidation. There's nothing secret about the cards. Union leaders know who voted and how and have every intention of ensuring that their wishes are paramount.

One union boss, Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union, explained how this works: "We like to say: We use the power of persuasion first. If it doesn't work, we try the persuasion of power." This is a union boss power grab, an attempt to force workers into unions without their consent.

This proposal would impose real costs on businesses at an incredibly poor time, not just in Missouri, but across the country. Costs for business owners would skyrocket as wage demands, restrictive work rules and work stoppages are all used by unions to demand more power. A recent study by Dr. Anne Layne-Farrar of Chicago, an economist with LECG Consulting, estimates the act would cost 600,000 jobs.

Union leaders say that the current system allows employees to intimidate workers in the weeks leading up to an election. On its website, the AFL-CIO highlights a study claiming that 92 percent of "private sector employers, when faced with employees who want to join together in a union, force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda."

But this claim simply acknowledges that employers want their side on the union issue to be heard. Union organizers are allowed to disseminate information to workers. Shouldn't employers have the same right?

Are there employers who violate federal law, illegally intimidating and firing workers involved in legal organizing? Yes, a small number. Fortunately, there are federal laws in place, enforced by the NLRB, to protect employees from such actions. But if federal lawmakers approve the Employee Free Choice Act, employers will have no ability to prevent union bosses from intimidating their employees into supporting a union.

Carl Bearden of St. Charles, Mo., is the state director of Americans For Prosperity-Missouri. He is a former Missouri legislator and graduate of Clearwater High School in Piedmont, Mo. carl@afphq.org;