Unions’ free choice act forfeits fairness for workers

America’s union leaders are attempting to expand their enrollment and increase dues at all costs. They are pushing a bill before Congress, misleadingly called the Employee Free Choice Act, that would do away with democratic unionization procedures and instead force workers to vote publicly by petition. The obvious result of this change, should the act be passed, is that union organizers will be able to hound workers on the floor, at lunch, even at home, until they sign the petition.

Unions are a safeguard for the American worker; a way to ensure that the masses are organized and are treated fairly by big business. Like anything, they are great for our economy and for American workers in moderation. But unions are currently present only when they are in sufficient demand. If 30 percent of workers sign a petition then there will be an election by secret ballot, monitored by the federal government. If more than 50 percent of workers vote for unionization, then a union is formed. If less than 50 percent of workers don’t want a union, then a union is not formed.

The current process is free and fair. The majority of union elections today are won by organized labor. But fairness is not the real issue for union bosses.

The Employee Free Choice Act, more commonly called the Card Check Act, is a way for unions to deal with a work force that is less dependent on them and paying them less dues. Only about 7.5 percent of the private sector today is unionized, and bosses are panicking. The Card Check Act is a way for unions to essentially “rig” elections – to shame and hound workers into signing a petition, even if they don’t want to form a union and don’t want to pay dues.

It is difficult to understand what benefit this legislation can possibly have, aside from increasing union enrollment in places where the majority of the work force doesn’t want a union. It does away with the secret ballot, does away with a campaign period that is separate from the election, does away with federal supervision.

Recently, Jen Jason, a former union organizer, testified before Congress about card check and union tactics. She worked for several years as an organizer; her job was to convince workers to sign authorization cards so an election could take place. She described in her congressional testimony the deceitful tactics the unions would have her use. “I began to realize,” she said, “that the number of cards that were signed had less to do with support for the union and more to do with the effectiveness of the organizer speaking to the workers.” She described her by-the-book tactics as effectively creating problems where there were none so as to convince workers to sign her cards.

In the end, Jason says, “the number of cards signed seems to have little relationship to the vote count” in the secret ballot elections. In other words, union organizers are working not to sign up workers already interested in unionizing but to manipulate workers into signing authorization cards. Many of these workers have a chance to think over their decision later, and so at the time of secret balloting vote against unionizing.

If workers lose the safeguard of a federally supervised ballot by secret election, businesses and workers alike will be much more susceptible to that union pressure described by Jason.

Betty Lou Mitchell of Etna is a former Republican state senator.