elections

Dan Walters thinks that there is hypocrisy in the push to ensure that our votes are counted accurately and the simultaneous support for the Employee Free Choice Act. It is about Democracy he says, and transparent election processes.

He doesn't actually have the guts to go far enough to say that he trusts black box voting. Instead, he tries to undercut Bowen and Feintein by saying it is just all to confusing to sort out. In the end, this really comes down to trust. The components of the machine matter less than how the voters perceive the security and accuracy of the voting method. We need to fix our voting systems because people do not trust them. There may be a extremely secure, open-source, touchscreen that enables all people to vote privately, but if the voters do not believe that their vote will count, then something needs to change.

The current system for choosing to form a union is completely broken, with severe consequences for millions of American workers. Every 23 minutes a worker is either fired or discriminated against for supporting a union. Employers routinely force their workers to be subjected to propaganda and threats. There are no meaningful penalties for breaking the current law. Walters focuses on the check card provisions of the legislation.

There is, however, an anomaly evident in the drumbeat for safeguarding the sanctity of the secret ballot. Most of it is coming from Democrats such as Bowen and Feinstein -- reflecting, one assumes, the angst and anger within their party over what happened in 2000. But the Democratic majorities in both Congress and the California Legislature are simultaneously pushing the notion that secret ballots should be eliminated in union representation elections.

The unions have been losing many of those elections, so they want to do away with them and substitute a "card-check" system under which an employer would be required to recognize and bargain with a union that had gathered signed cards from a majority of the affected workers.

Unions contend that with elections, employers have too much ability to influence workers. If so, however, the remedy should be to improve the voting procedures of the National Labor Relations Board, because the card-check system would open the door to coercion by union organizers. They would know which employees were and were not supportive of the union.

Walter's is correct, the voting procedures of the NLRB are seriously broken and I contend they are broken beyond repair. Take a look at what actually goes on. This is fromPaulVA over at the AFL-CIO blog:

Gordon Lafer, a professor at the University of Oregon who has studied how the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union representation election process really works, told the staff members the process

resembles what happens in rogue regimes abroad rather than anything we call American.

Even though the process ends in a secret ballot, it is not fair, Lafer told a briefing for Capitol Hill staff members Friday. He compared what happens in union representation elections to the standards the United States sets for what is “free and fair” in foreign elections and says “every aspect of the NLRB process violates U.S. standards of free and fair.”

In a report for ARAW, Lafer compares U.S. standards for foreign and domestic elections with the union representation election:

• Democratic Election Standard: Each side should have equal access to the media so that competing viewpoints can create an informed electorate.
• Union Representation Election: Employees are restricted from openly handing out information. Employers have monopoly control of media in the workplace. Employers can distribute anti-union literature anywhere anytime, while pro-union workers can only post literature in the break area during break time.
• Democratic Election Standard: The right should be freedom of speech that allows broad debate of public issues.
• Union Representation Election: Employers are allowed to enforce a total ban on employees discussing a proposed union outside the break room. Yet employers can have unrestricted access to employees, including mandatory staff meetings and one-on-one meetings with supervisors.
• Democratic Election Standard: Both sides should have equal access to contact and inform voters.
• Union Representation Election: Although pro-union workers can contact workers outside the workplace, they cannot have address information for employees until they can document that 30 percent of the workforce wants a union.
• Democratic Election Standard: No side should coerce or have undue influence on who a voter supports.
• Union Representation Election: Employees are not protected against economic coercion. Employers and suWalters on Elections - Google Docs & Spreadsheetspervisors exercise considerable leverage over workers. Generally, they stop short of outright threats or bribes (which are illegal) and instead, are allowed to issue thinly veiled threats like “choosing a union may lead the company to lose business or make cutbacks.”
• Democratic Election Standard: Once the voters make a decision, it should take effect quickly through a system of regular elections and fixed terms of office.
• Union Representation Election: If workers vote for a union, they can face infinite delays before their will is carried out. Often the delays, which sometimes take years because employers take full advantage of permissive election guidelines and drag out appeals for years. Also, the laws require that the workplace operate as if the workers did not choose a union during the appeals.
• Democratic Election Standard: Campaign finances should be regulated to allow a competitive and level playing field.
• Union Representation Election: The law sets no limit on the amount an employer can spend to fight workers’ choice to form a union. Also, the employer has access to resources the uniondoesn ’t such as on-the-clock meetings, use of company property and equipment and converting supervisors to anti-union campaign staff.

Contrary to Walters assertions about coercion, academic studies show that workers who organize under majority sign-up feel less pressure from co-workers to support the union than workers who organize under the NLRB election process. They also report less pressure from management. It is already illegal for anyone to coerce employees to sign a union authorization card. Anyone who breaks that law will be subject to penalties under the Employee Free Choice Act.

While the check-card process is at the heart of the Employee Free Choice Act, the increased penalties for breaking the law that will bring about enormous change and level the playing field. It is unacceptable for either employers or union supporters to coerce employees. Any violation of that law should be punished. Right now the process takes way too long and renders insufficient penalties to serve as a real deterrent. The EFCA would change all of that

Majority sign-up represents the will of the majority which votes by signing cards. Reforming the NLRB does not address the unique concept of an election where the employer holds veto power over the will of employees by exposing them to a second election. Additionally, the Employee Free Choice Act would not take away the right of workers to have an election. It would merely add check-cards as another way for employees to voice their desire to form a union.

It is well past time to have fair and trusted elections in this country. Now it appears we have people in office who will work to ensure that happens. We should expect nothing less.