New Choice for Labor Secretary Supports Secret Ballots For Democrats, Opposes Them for Workers
Posted by GOP Leader Press Office on December 19th, 2008
According to press reports, President-Elect Barack Obama will name Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA) as his choice for Labor Secretary later today.
As a member of Congress, Rep. Solis co-sponsored the highly-controversial Employee Free Choice Act, legislation that would end a worker’s right to a secret ballot when deciding whether to join a union. She also voted for this anti-worker bill when Democrats passed it through the House on March 1, 2007.
However, Rep. Solis took a different tack on secret ballot elections when it came time for internal Democratic Caucus elections. Specifically, she co-signed a letter criticizing the absence of secret ballots in electing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus leadership on January 5, 2007. The letter explained:
“… votes by secret ballot were in order but never taken. We therefore believe that we need to follow proper rules of procedure and hold a vote by secret ballot.”
The letter continued:
“[I]t is important that the integrity of the [Congressional Hispanic Caucus] be unquestioned and above reproach.”
So Rep. Solis strongly supports secret ballot elections for Democrats, but opposes them for working Americans. Ending secret ballots, as Democrats and their Big Labor allies have proposed, would leave workers vulnerable to coercion, pressure, and outright intimidation and threats – from either the management or the union side of the election. And nearly 80 percent of Americans strongly oppose this bill.
That’s why Republicans are working to preserve the decades-old secret ballot election in the workplace – to prevent workers from being intimidated into doing something they don’t believe is in their best interests. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) recently said on Fox News Sunday that Republicans will do everything they can to stop the efforts of Democrats and Big Labor to kill the secret ballot, saying:
“This is, I think, an affront to the American people, and we will do everything we can to stop it.”
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Card-checkocracy
Posted by GOP Leader Press Office on December 3rd, 2008
Today the Chicago Tribune takes a closer look at The Employee Free Choice Act:
Organized labor helped elect Barack Obama and now eagerly awaits his promised support for its top priority—a bill that would make it easier to set up union locals…
The so-called card-check bill would not protect workers and it would not be “free choice.” It would strip away their right to vote in secret, making it more likely they would face intimidation from organizers and other workers. The pressure would be on to check the card, whether or not they actually wanted a union.
It’s clear why union bosses want this law. Union membership ticked up last year, but it has been plunging for half a century….Union leaders prefer to blame the decline on federal labor laws, which they say make it too hard to organize. That’s a pretty flimsy argument. Present law allows the National Labor Relations Board to call for an election by secret ballot after 30 percent of employees at a work site have requested a vote. That’s hardly a high hurdle.
There are ways to recast the nation’s labor laws so workers’ interests are protected, without subjecting them to more intimidation by union organizers…In short, create more incentives for labor and management to negotiate in good faith and preserve the workers’ right to a secret ballot…
The inaptly named Employee Free Choice Act would be good for labor bosses. But it wouldn’t be good for laborers.
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Boehner: GOP Firmly Against ‘Card Check’
Posted by GOP Leader Press Office on November 20th, 2008
Featured in tomorrow’s Washington Times:
House Republican Leader John A. Boehner said Democrats’ use of secret ballots to chose its leadership was ironic because the party wants to nix workers’ rights to a secret voting in deciding whether to unionize.
“The secret ballot election is a cornerstone of our American democracy,” Mr. Boehner, Ohio Republican, said Thursday. “If it is good enough for House Democrats to rely on during today’s high-stakes vote, shouldn’t it be good enough for millions of American workers across America who value their workplace privacy?”
He vowed Republicans would stand firmly against the Democrat’s “card-check” legislation - dubbed the Employee Free Choice Act or EFCA. It would allow organizers to unionize a workplace by gathering enough singed cards rather than the current process of employees deciding by secret ballots…
…Enacting the card-check law is a top priority for organized labor and the unions are confident it will be passed by the Democrat-led Congress and signed by President-elect Barack Obama, a top AFL-CIO lobbyist told The Washington Times this week.
“I have no doubt it will pass and will be singed,” AFL-CIO government-affairs director William Samuel said in an exclusive interview.
Mr. Obama and House Democratic leaders supported the bill during House and Senate votes last year. Critics of the card check process say it leaves workers vulnerable to coercion and intimidation from either the management or the union organizers.
Mr. Boehner highlighted House Democrats’ use of a secret ballot Wednesday in deciding a bitter showdown between two Democratic titans - Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California and Rep. John D. Dingell of Michigan - over control of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
House Democratic Caucus voted 137 to 122 to install the fiercely liberal Mr. Waxman and outs Mr. Dingell, whose close ties to U.S. automakers and the utility industry had put him as odds with the environmental agenda of Democratic leaders, including Mrs. Pelosi.
Mr. Boehner noted that Rep. Louise Slaughter, New York Democrat, earlier in the week expressed relief her vote in the Dingell-Waxman conflict would not be public. “It’s a secret ballot, thank the Lord,” she told Congressional Quarterly.
“Killing secret ballot rights in the workplace may be a priority for the special interests that have placed Democrats in charge of Washington, but it is not in the best interest of workers or our democratic system,” Mr. Boehner said.
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