Free Choice

Whether you belong to a union or not, whether you believe unions protect or destroy jobs, everyone should write their representatives to tell them to vote no to the pending Employee “Free Choice” Act.

Despite the legislation’s Orwellian double -speak title, it destroys free choice by removing the requirement unions be certified in a secret ballot.  Removing the right to vote in private would create hostile and coercive work environments.  Union organizers would be given the right to bypass secret ballots by getting the majority of employees to sign cards requesting representation.  Each employee would be pitted against how ever many of their co-workers or hired organizers would be needed to obtain their signature.  An employee saying no would do so publicly in a manner which could submit them to ridicule, ostracism, and/or retaliation. Employees also risk employer retaliation.  Since the petition process obviates mandatory secret ballots, employers will know who did and did not sign cards.

Although coercion is illegal, it comes in many forms from physical threat, to being passed over for raises and promotions, to the emotional distress of being forced into uncomfortable public arguments.  Some forms of coercion can be argued in court, others are impossible to prove.  All of this coercion is removed by the secret ballot.

Unions have fought for years and are spending millions lobbying to do away with the secret ballot, because it is an impediment to their organizing efforts.  Businesses, which have a choice of locating outside the United States, are lobbying against the Employee “Free Choice” Act.  Neither group represents us.  For the last four years Democrats efforts to pass this legislation were blocked by Republicans with both sides taking vast sums of lobbyists’ money.  Some of these politicians represent us. Please write our Senators and Representative and tell them: Democracy’s bedrock is the secret ballot! Demand they keep our workplaces free and that they must vote against the so called Employee “Free Choice” Act.

Keith Miller