Some union leaders are saying that they like secret ballot elections and that it’s only anti-union elements who claim that they don’t.
To prove that unions love secret ballot elections, for example, a union leader in Maine claims that unions have regular secret ballot elections to elect union leaders. The Employee Free Choice Act, however, is not about electing union leaders; it is about unionizing workers after they have signed card checks.
Union leaders and their supporters in Congress want to do away with secret ballot elections as part of organizing campaigns, so that unions can be more successful in organizing workers than they have been in the past decade.
Some union leaders are simply using a clever rhetorical tactic designed to dispel concerns about doing away with a democratic tradition, namely secret ballot elections. It’s as if those union leaders are saying “don’t worry; we like elections. Just look at how we choose our own leaders.”
Any sensible person, however, knows that there is a vast difference between union leadership elections and organizing elections. And there is a vast difference between democratically held secret ballot elections and card checks which may subject workers to coercive tactics.
Corporate America and those who uphold our democratic traditions will not be fooled by such rhetorical bait and switch tactics.
