How on earth can you say with a straight face that nothing changes when the unions can skip the secret ballot? If they can intimidate 50% of the workers into signing the cards (which are not secret), then no secret ballot gets used. You made the claim that the secret ballot would necessarily be higher than the public petition. I pointed out that this was wrong. The reasons it's wrong are obvious. The possible consequences of it being wrong are obvious as well: it's possible for a union to form even if less than 50% of the workers actually want it. You say that changes nothing. But it does, as I've just explained. You cannot actually counter my point that your baseline assumption that the secret ballot would always return a higher vote than the public petition is simply wrong.
As the union is running around and intimidating people, 30% can submit a petition to the NLRB that the union never gets to know about. This trumps the card check and there's a secret ballot.
But this is what I love: give me some example of this sort of union intimidation occuring. This sort of thing gets dealt with so swiftly by management and law enforcement. It just isn't a problem.
And hell, even if we take you at your word, your position is still nonsensical. After all, if nothing changes, why enact the law at all? You cannot seriously expect us to believe that unions are fighting so hard for card check because they want to remove redundancy in the election process. Procedural efficiency has never been a rallying call, and it sure as hell isn't one now.
I've explained this 10 times. It does make a significant change: if >50% sign the initial petition, the union automatically forms. THis eliminates the time lag that employers use to run anti-union campaigns. Unlike your fantasy about union "thugs" intimidating people, this is a persistent problem:
In the last two decades, private-sector employer opposition to workers seeking their legal right to union representation has intensified. Compared to the 1990s, employers are more than twice as likely to use 10 or more tactics in their anti-union campaigns, with a greater focus on more coercive and punitive tactics designed to intensely monitor and punish union activity.
It has become standard practice for workers to be subjected by corporations to threats, interrogation, harassment, surveillance, and retaliation for supporting a union. An analysis of the 1999-2003 data on NLRB election campaigns finds that:
63%of employers interrogate workers in mandatory one-on-one meetings with their supervisors about support for the union;
54% of employers threaten workers in such meetings;
57% of employers threaten to close the worksite;
47% of employers threaten to cut wages and benefits; and
34% of employers fire workers.
http://www.americanrightsatwork.org...ition-to-organizing-20090520-758-116-116.html
Card check is meant to curtail ACTUAL harassment and ACTUAL intimidation, as opposed to this fantasy nonsense you're babbling about.
You have GOT to be kidding me. Union organizers from existing unions can do the intimidating. Is that really not obvious?
And there's no way for poor wittle corporate America to stand up against this...
Here's all that happens:
But even the principle behind the argument is a fraud. The obvious point is that companies don't allow secret ballots for electing managers. But the real fraud is that union workers have plenty of secret ballots under the Employee Free Choice Act:
•They elect union leaders by secret ballot;
•They vote on whether to authorize strike or other work actions by secret ballot;
•They approve union contracts by secret ballot
But without a union in the first place, most workers never see any ballot at all on their work conditions:
Let's be clear what happens when a majority of workers sign cards asking for a union. The company then has to meet with union representatives to discuss work conditions. That's pretty much it. After the union comes in, there are lots of discussions, debates and, yes, secret ballots by the members on all sorts of things even before a union contract can be negotiated and implemented.
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2007/03/01/labor_law_and_saving_the_secre/
You keep saying that, but it only makes sense if you assume that union intimidation cannot occur. But that's simply false. And your above reason for why it's false is simply laughable.
Please, you don't understand the law, you don't understand the facts (as evidenced by your continual failure to factually substantiate this idiocy about union intimidation), and so you're resorting to hollow bluster.
The workers aren't unionized at that point. If they go to management and say, "These union folks are trying to intimidate me into signing their petition," what do you think will happen?
It's just amazing what a fantasy world you live in. Management and employers have such a massive power advantage over unions and yet the mere chance of union "intimidation" is so terrifying that you're willing to ignore all the evidence for actual employer intimidation. Fascinating.
If they can gather the required 30%. But if they're being intimidated, who among them is going to risk trying to do that? Why shouldn't a secret ballot be used every time?
Because 1) they can go to management; 2) they can do it simultaneously with the union forming; 3) they can submit evidence of intimidation to police and other law enforcement officials; 4) they can sign the petition, send it to the NLRB and never tell the union about it.
Is there currently a problem with rogue unions going around and intimidating workers into submitting petitions to the NLRB? Do you have any evidence that during the lull between the petition and the secret ballot election these outside unions are intimidating workers? Do you have evidence for anything or is this just paranoia?
