Aren't you misrepresenting the situation just a little by treating "the workers" as a monolithic bloc? The way I understand it, employers insist on secret ballot elections because it prevents individual workers from being coerced or intimidated into signing a card. [There are other, more nefarious reasons as well, which I think the bill addresses.]

Taking away the employer's option to demand a secret ballot could easily lead to a strong pro-union minority intimidating workers on the fence into signing, and thus getting a union over the interests of the majority of the workers.

Employers insist on the secret ballot because that gives them time to bring in anti-union consultants to tell employees lies about what unions do and how it will change things.

As for intimidation on the part of unions, please read: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-levine/new-study-destroys-union_b_197483.html

Workers must have the ability to form a union at work in secret. That's right, organizing at work is such a risk to your employment, you need a way to get to a majority before the employer gets to you. What's the penalty for firing employees who talk about forming a union? Slap on hand for, "Clean out your desk and walk out with the security guard." Signing a membership card in secret, that is your valid vote for the union, is the only way to bring the union before the union busting lawyers arrive. I know.

Not related to Baker's post, but telling figures from the article he linked to:

"Labor, which spent $100 million on Democratic campaigns last year"

...

"Penny Pritzker, Obama’s campaign finance chairwoman and a director of Global Hyatt Corp., has told the president she is opposed to the measure, known as card check, ...

Pritzker ran committees that generated a record of more than $745 million for the Obama campaign plus $53 million for the inauguration"

Wow! So if I understand this right, Pritzker managed to (opponent of the employee free choice act) raise the equivalent of one half of the ALL the money labor gave to the WHOLE democratic party, just to spend on the inauguration.

We really got a lot to fear from "big" labor and the way it throws its money around to influence law makers and the president, don't we!

Unfortunately EFCA DOES take away the right to a secret ballot after a majority of workers sign a union authorization card. The bill specifically reads, "If the Board finds that a majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for bargaining has signed valid authorizations..the Board shall not direct an election..."

Nowhere in the bill (HR 1409 or S 560) does it state that workers would now have the right to decide on a secret ballot. That decision is left up to the unions.

Finally, it only seems fair that unions should have the same penalties as employers if they treat workers unfairly. After all, unions are just as guilty as certain employers in their attempts to coerce employees to sign cards.

So unions are guilty in their attempts to coerce employees to sign cards. And just "certain" employers treat their employees unfairly for which they would be penalized. Hmmmm. Very interesting ... and telling.

But to anybody who cares about justice, here's the frame: Just like Arlen Specter had to merely announce and/or fill out some little voter registration form to change from being a Republican to being a Democrat, workers should also enjoy that same freedom to associate with a union.

Now if you believe things like unions are all corrupt/evil/fill-in-the-pejorative-blank or that class warfare only comes from the scary unwashed but benevolent suits justly spread the wealth so they need no oversight or regulation, well workers cannot possibly have the same freedom of association as their "betters," like say the people who belong to the Manufacturers Association or the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

However, if you believe in freedom, justice, and the U.S. Constitution, and you don't scare easily, then you'll be okay with EFCA.

I'm okay with it and with people joining the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Manufactures Association, any political party, etc.

And I've never belonged to a union--unless there's one for domestic goddesses that I don't know about. And nobody in my immediate family belongs to a union either.

Mr. Baker,

Sir, why do you wish to be dishonest about this?

No less than Sen. George McGovern has spoken out about this travesty:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124165379013293871.html

George Meany really was right on this one.

What nonsense, sir.

that drives me absolutely crazy... i dont understand how people get away with outright lies like that one.

How many times do we have to say it.

Dean is absolutely correct, but its even worse than he paints it. Under current law, 30% of the workers in a bargaining unit have to sign cards -- right out in the open -- to even get the chance to have a secret ballot election. Thus, under current law, to get to the secret ballot election that the Chamber of Commerce is so anxious to protect at least 30% of the workers have to sacrifice their privacy. The same is true under EFCA.

So by the time you get to a secret ballot, secrecy is already lost for a substantial portion of the bargaining unit.

Let me ask EFCA opponents this. Why don't you trust workers to choose what's best for themselves (i.e. majority sign-up or secret ballot election)? It's crassly paternalistic to think that only management is capable of choosing what's best for the workers rather than leaving it up to the workers to decide.

Wow, all I can say is, Harrison Ford *really* wants to save General Aviation.

Dave in DC,

Sir, did you not read my post? Did you not read what George Meany said, and what former Sen. McGovern wrote?

Sir, let's compare: George Meany and Walter Reuther (as labor leaders, now) vs. Andrew Stern and John Sweeney & Mr. Hoffa (junior, I mean, although they're not much different, father-and-son, except in degree).

Now, which one of those sets of leaders - really - more REPRESENTED ACTUAL WORKERS (rather than the labor "management," which is what the leader bureaucracy is; I'm not casting aspersions on bureaucracy. I'm merely noting that it exists) rather than the bureaucracy itself?

Ask yourself: is Ron Gettelfinger looking out for the well-being of workers when GM's collapsing all around him, or is he looking out for Ron Gettelfinger and his own family?

I realize I'm a conservative here, but, really, folks: take a look around you.

Best.
TT

Don't we have information on how often secret ballots have actually been held? If management is really looking out for worker's interests it would seem that they would call for them pretty often and they would be held immediately. If they hear that some employees are passing out cards their response should be to call for a ballot, not fire the employees. There is a lot of argument about what would or would not happen but it would be nice to look at some actual data. This is how science works.

Skeptonomist,

Why does it matter how often secret ballots are or have been held?

The assumption in your post is that management is always versus workers (otherwise, they'd always have secret ballots to things, and never - or not very often - fire workers, REGARDLESS of costs, economic conditions, productivity, etc).

I agree with actual data. But, it depends upon WHAT is measured, and WHAT the conditions are, etc, etc.

Why does no one on this blog ever delve into the essential problem of the economy, rather than the tangential EFCA?

"Why does it matter how often secret ballots are or have been held?"

It could be a way of judging the truth of claims by EFCA opponents that they have the welfare of employees at heart. By making this claim, they imply that they are not waging "class war" on workers. Their contention, and that of some commenters on this post, is that they are taking the part of employees against union bosses who are coercing workers to join unions against their own material interests. For various reasons which Dean has often discussed this contention is dubious. There are ways to answer questions like this other than seeing who shouts the loudest.

Dean and many people who frequent this blog think that an essential problem of the economy is that "class war" has been waged against workers so that they have not been sharing in the benefits of productivity increases, and that weakening of unions is part of this.

Dear Mr. Baker,

I normally enjoy your unconventional commentary on the economy, but your position on EFCA is flawed. As many of the postings before me have already pointed out, the right ot a ballot is an individual right, not a right that the one-time majority should be able to take away. I think EFCA should concentrate on takling away long-term pressure on the employees by the employer, by disallowing delay tactics, like: if a majority has signed the card and there is no ballot within four weeks, the union is established. A secret ballot can then be hold later, like after half a year, to remove the union if the majority of the workers so wishes.

it's good to see that the Chamber of Commerce has either hired a more courteous class of trolls or supplied a more courteously worded form letter. plus 1 for them

The more fundamental problem is that employers aren't elected. The typical workplace is an outright dictatorship. Unions limit the power of the workplace dictators and business groups and their supporters find that deeply offensive - so entrenched is their love of illegitmate authority.

Joe:
> The typical workplace is an outright dictatorship. Unions limit the power of the workplace dictators

First, you understimate the hardship of living under a real, political dictatorship where you can't opt for another more benevolent "dictator". Second, I rather experience the unions at our place as limits of my freedom to organize my work - oh, this you are not allowed to do, oh, that this worker shouldn't do. What about a union that actually increases productivity and limits its adversity to getting a larger share of the fruits of the labor?

To HH,

You wrote, The way I understand it, employers insist on secret ballot elections because it prevents individual workers from being coerced or intimidated into signing a card.

That is funny, I thought that employers called for the secret ballot to give themselves a chance to coerce employees into voting no.

In response to my observation that employers are unelected (i.e dictators) who wield illegitimate authority, and that this renders there complaints about unions and "secret ballots", among things, extremely hypocritical.

Peter T responds

"you understimate the hardship of living under a real, political dictatorship where you can't opt for another more benevolent "dictator". "

The level of hardship is irrelevant to whether or not the dictator wields illegitimate authority. Why settle for any dictator at all?

In a workplace in an avnced economy the worst abuses of the (corporal punishment, sexual harassemnt) have been minimized through decades of struggle. The threat inf unionization is one thing that keeps workplace dictaors from being much worse, but that doesn't legitimize their authority.

The union assembly planyt where I work is more productive than non-union trasnplants. That hower, does not address the key point I raised. Even if you could prve to mme that abolishing deomcracy government would add to GDP I would not be in favor.

The last 25-30 years shows that increasing prodctuvity does NOT mean that workers will get increasing share.

First, you understimate the hardship of living under a real, political dictatorship where you can't opt for another more benevolent "dictator".

So, yes, employers are dictators but you can leave one (or be expelled) and become the subject of another!

True freedom is, apparently, the freedom of having a choice of dictators... but freedom is more than the right to pick masters.

If the USA was turned into 50 dictatorships, but with subjects having the ability to move to another dictatorship (assuming they get permission from the ruler of that state) would that be freedom?

Of course not, so why is it acceptable in the economy?

To all those who suffer under the economic "dictatorship" of a company - get self-employed and suffer under the "dictatorship" of your customers. The chance to change your employer (in opposite to a real dictator) is a major force making your employer receptive to your input.

The interests of "the individual employees" and "the union organizers" are not necessarily the same. Especially in the case of a particular employee who may not want to be part of a union. (Yes, Virginia, they do exist. I'm one.)

The article uses the phrase "the workers" to refer to both groups interchangeably, as if they are all the same, with identical interests. This is confusing, perhaps deliberately confusing. The whole point of the article depends on this confusion. Clarify it, and the article becomes almost meaningless.

My dad walked away from a truck-driving job one afternoon, after a couple of union goons informed him that it would be unhealthy for him to continue speaking his mind in the meetings of the union local. This was back in the 1950's, back when Jimmy Hoffa and his (allegedly) Mafia cronies were running the teamsters. Dad changed industries to get away from that union. But he made sure that all his kids knew what he'd done, and why. Union intimidation is no myth, and anyone who tries to pretend it is, is lying.

I can see that ad hominem attacks coming already, so I'll add this: if you suggest that my Dad was a tool of the "bosses", then or now, he'll laugh in your face. As for me, I do computers in Silicon Valley. Unions have no chance in high-tech, because most of us are smart enough to figure out where our real interests lie.

Peter,
Even if laws were drastically changed to improve the bargaining power of employees relative to their employers -making unions easier to form, making the prospects of losing your job less frightening (by making welfare and unemployment insurance more generous and easier to get), or making it easier to go into competition against your boss (by abolishing non-compete contracts for example) - none of that changes the fact that the typical workplace is a dictatorshop and that there is no more reason to tolerate it in the workplace than there is in the political arena.

No matter how "benevolent" or defanged a dictatorship is in the political areana most of us would - thankfully - reject it.

For the dictator to say - "well you are free to leave the country - or go off somewhere and form your own country " is not an arguemnt that would impress very many people.

Do we have a right to decision making power to the extent we are impacted by those decisions?

Most of us emphatically agree if we asked this question about political decisions but we have been brainwashed to defer to an unlected elite about economic decisions especially in the workplace.

The fact that employers even dare to compain about secret ballots shows the extent of the brainwashing.

"Unions have no chance in high-tech, because most of us are smart enough to figure out where our real interests lie."

Right, until your job is outsourced to India.

You live in a business, not union, run country. And even the blunt forms of intimidation you describe are dominated by business.

You've never heard of union busting goons? You've never heard of the Ludlow Massacre?

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