Obama Labor Board Launches Assault on Workers' Right to Secret Ballot to Remove Unwanted Union

NLRB's decision to revisit pro-worker precedent highlights Board Member Craig Becker's refusal to recuse himself despite massive conflicts of interest

Washington, DC (September 1, 2010) – In a decision dated August 27 but only released yesterday, three members of the National Labor Relations Board granted review of a landmark 2007 case in which the federal labor board granted employees the right to demand a secret ballot election to remove an unwanted union within 45 days after the union obtained monopoly bargaining status through the coercive card check process.

In late 2009, union lawyers initiated a strategy to overturn the Dana Corp. decision won by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys. In a series of cases nationwide, union lawyers asked the NLRB to revoke the new protections to workers swept into union ranks through card check forced unionism, and now three members of the Board – all former union lawyers themselves – have agreed to consolidate two of those cases in a review of Dana.

As the dissenting Board members point out, workers across the country have already used Dana decertification elections to kick out unwanted unions, demonstrating the unreliability of card check instant organizing campaigns. Workers frequently sign union authorization cards due to union organizers’ intimidating tactics or even outright lies about what signing a card means. To remove the limited protection of the secret ballot in these cases – as the Obama NLRB appears set to do – would deny workers the ability to vote according to their conscience and remove an unwanted union from their workplace.

Read the full press release.

It appears Big Labor will stop at nothing to impose card check forced unionism on American workers and job-providers. Public opposition from energized Right to Work supporters and other concerned Americans to the draconian card check bill -- which eliminates the secret ballot in workplace unionization drives, opens up workers to intimidating "home visits," and allows government bureaucrats to impose contracts on workers -- has thus far stalled the legislation in the Senate.

On Tuesday, in what may have been a test vote on card check, the Senate rejected an attempt to move President Obama's nomination of radical union lawyer Craig Becker to a seat on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), the quasi-judicial agency that administers federal labor law.  Becker's writings indicated a willingness to impose the card check forced unionism mechanism through NLRB rules, without even a Congressional vote.

But despite this setback union officials aren't giving up on card check, and neither are the forced unionism proponents in the Obama Administration.  The Daily Caller reports that White House staffers are considering a new executive order that could effectively require all federal contractors to submit their workers to coercive card check campaigns:

Critics say the proposals would heavily favor unionized companies and significantly increase the cost and amount of time needed to award contracts. Estimates have the potential cost increase at 20 percent, adding about $100 billion a year to the federal budget.

“Making contracting decisions based on political or ideological litmus tests will waste taxpayer dollars and limit economic growth at a time when we can least afford to do so. The administration’s new rules amount to a backdoor attempt at card check. The last thing our small businesses need is to be saddled with new rules that effectively say ‘unionize or die,’” said John Hart, communications director for Senator Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican. Coburn and four other Senate Republicans sent a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag last week asking for a briefing on the proposals; they have yet to receive a response.

...

Now the administration is facing increasing pressure to go around Congress and implement pro-labor policies via executive order. The Service Employees International Union, one of the groups lobbying the White House to adopt the new labor policies, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

No surprises here: SEIU czar Andy Stern was the most frequest visitor to the White House in Obama's first year.

Yesterday in Roll Call, Bret Jacobson noted the importance of today's Senate hearings on President Obama's nomination of Service Employee International Union General Counsel, Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board.

Thus, we have today’s hearing for Becker, a longtime strategist and lawyer for organized labor. If they can’t get “card check” through a broad, participatory legislative process, they’ll push to grab a similar victory through the federal board’s ability to regulate without approval of the people’s Representatives.

As such, this hearing — demanded by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who is troubled by Becker’s blatantly anti-employer views — signals that we have officially hit plan B on the administration’s strategy for pandering to the organized labor lobby. This new course will focus on the quiet job-killer of regulation and card check by fiat.

But the real problem isn't that Becker is anti-employer -- it's that his career as a diehard union boss apologist reveals an extreme hostility to the very employees the union bosses claim to represent.  Last October, National Right Work president Mark Mix took to the pages of the Washington Times to make this very point:

In fact, as a former AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) lawyer, Mr. Becker is solely responsible for forcing tens of thousands of workers under union boss control.

In one case, reports from a Los Angeles SEIU local union revealed that almost 63,000 people rejected membership in the union in 2007, but thanks to Mr. Becker, were still forced to pay dues.

And Mr. Becker's own words explain why. He was even so bold as to say unions were "formed to escape the evils of individualism and individual competition ... their actions necessarily involve coercion."

With that kind of anything-goes attitude, it's no surprise Mr. Becker supports "home visits," in which union militants repeatedly harass workers at home until they sign union-authorization cards, and even advocates letting Mr. Obama's handpicked arbiters impose contracts on workers, without even allowing the workers to vote on their own contract.

Contrast Craig Becker's radical, pro-coercion views with the words of Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor: "No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion."

For more on Becker, see this post from the National Right to Work Committee's blog and visit their action center here.

Last week, AFL-CIO union czar Richard Trumka (download the Foundation's Fact Sheet on his history of condoning union violence and corruption) made headlines by predicting that the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill will pass in early 2010.  The heated debate over the health care overhaul legislation has kept the public eye off this other union boss power grab for a few months, but Trumka's prediction makes it clear Big Labor's high command haven't forgotten about their highest priority.

The Card Check Forced Unionism Bill would effectively eliminate workers' right to a secret ballot in workplace unionization drives and replace it with overt union intimidation:

Under the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill, the provisions of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) that refer to the secret ballot election would be rendered a dead letter, even though they are not technically stricken from federal law.

Big Labor spin artists can claim all they want that the workers can still "choose" to have a secret ballot election, but there simply is no way by which workers can force union bosses to file for a secret ballot election -- and it is union bosses, not workers, who are in possession of the cards.  Reporters who repeat this union boss talking point owe their readers a correction.

Read the full analysis here.  Union bosses prefer card check instant organizing because it puts all of the power in their hands -- free from the meddling interference of government election supervisors and the workers themselves.  

Fortunately, we already know what card check campaigns look like.  Unfortunately, we only know this because hardworking Americans have been subjected to harassment, intimidation, and coercion by union bosses to get them to sign cards.  In the video below, Dana Corporation employees in Albion, Indiana, shared their stories with the National Right to Work Committee.

The National Right to Work Committee warns to beware of any bogus compromises under the guise of protecting the secret ballot.  One of the most dangerous aspect of the "compromise" talks is the lack of focus on the other toxic provision of the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill: mandatory binding arbitration.

Under the bill, workers won't just lose the right to a secret ballot when deciding whether or not to form a union.  Even those who choose to join a union's ranks may see their voting rights severely limited, as mandatory binding arbitration would allow government bureaucrats to impose contracts on workers.  That means union members may not even be able to vote to ratify their contracts: Whatever the government says... goes.

Even Far Left icon George McGovern knows this is a terrible idea.   And as Reason Foundation analyst Shikha Dalmia detailed in the Wall Street Journal, states' experiments with mandatory binding arbitration and public sector unions have led to atrocious results -- including out of control budgets and fiscal mismanagement.

In a surprising display of honesty about their true agenda, union bosses and Far Left activists participated on a panel at the Netroots Nation conference called "The Secret Plan to Destroy the American Right."

What's their "secret plan" to expand the power and size of government and raise taxes on hard-working Americans? It's passage of the woefully misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, more accurately called the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.

Union bosses apparently see the billions of forced dues dollars that the bill would funnel into pushing Organized Labor's radical political agenda as THE major selling point for the bill.

Unfortunately for the panelists and the Big Labor hierarchy, but fortunately for the American people, there's nothing secret about the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill and how it would obliterate the rights of American workers.  Right here on Freedom@Work, we've kept concerned citizens informed about this union boss power grab:

• Expert legal analysis explaining how the Card Check Bill would destroy the secret ballot in union certification elections
• Workers in Albion, Indiana tell Fox News about the real life intimidation they felt during a card check organizing drive by the militant United Auto Workers (UAW) union
• A former union president testifies before Congress about the dangers of card check organizing
• Worker explains to Senate labor committee how union goons lied to him to get him to sign a card
• National Right to Work president Mark Mix discusses card check and union intimidation on a nationally syndicated radio program
• At the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference, Mix demonstrates why union bosses love card check
• Far Left icon George McGovern writes in the Wall Street Journal about another disturbing feature of the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill: mandatory binding arbitration

Check out our full archive on card check.

In this new special National Right to Work Committee video report, Dana Corporation employees in Albion, Indiana, share their stories of harassment and intimidation by UAW union operatives during a militant card check organizing drive. The workers discuss how union organizers specifically targeted and ramped up their coercive tactics against female employees.

As one worker explains in the video, “People in the UAW will call you their sister or their brother. I never treated any of my brothers and sisters that way.”

UAW union organizers were able to collect a majority of signatures after weeks of pressure on the employees. Thanks to a precedent won by attorneys with the National Right to Work Foundation, the employees eventually forced an election and defeated the UAW union hierarchy.

Workers will not have this secret ballot option if the union-label Congress repays its billion-dollar campaign debt to Big Labor by passing the Card Check Forced Unionism Bill.

The National Right to Work Foundation provides free legal aid to employees so they can fight back against union coercion and abuse.

The Foundation must rely on the voluntary support of individual Americans who believe in our cause and wish to advance our strategic litigation program. To make a fully tax-deductible donation in whatever amount, please click here.

Now we know why union bosses don't believe in the secret ballot: they don't really know what a secret ballot looks like.

Film crew union IATSE recently conducted a vote of its members to ratify its contract proposal with Hollywood producers. The union bosses sent each member a large packet containing the proposal, a ballot, and two reply envelopes.

After marking the ballot, members were instructed to put the ballot in a white envelope (which does not include any identifying information), and then put the white envelope in a blue envelope (which does include identifying information).

The problem? The white envelopes were see-through, meaning union bosses could automatically throw out votes opposing the union boss line. Worse, because the outer envelope contains the voter's name, union goons would also know which members voted which way.

No wonder union bosses complain the secret ballot doesn't work.