“It is disheartening to see the Democrats so blatantly paying back big labor bosses by stripping away the right of hard working Americans to a secret ballot in making decisions affecting their job,” Rep. Lamborn said. “The privacy of the voting booth ensures that workers can express their true decision after reflection and without pressure or fear of harassment. I cannot in good conscience support a bill that takes the fundamental right to a secret vote away from workers just to benefit union bosses.”

Under current law, employees may organize in a workplace in one of two ways. First, they can petition for a secret ballot election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.

In the alternative, they may seek union recognition by submitting 50 percent plus one authorization cards, indicating their support for union representation. This is done after the employer and union seeking representation sign a “neutrality agreement” permitting the union to organize through this type of “card check” campaign.

This legislation would kill the first of the two options — rejecting more than seven decades of secret-ballot organizing elections, not to mention countless court cases reaffirming the private ballot as the single best way to protect workers from intimidation and coercion in union-organizing campaigns.

Private ballots ensure that workers' decisions to join or not to join a union remain private so that no one can threaten them for making the "wrong" choice. With card checks, both the company and the union know how workers voted, and this exposes workers to the possibility of retaliation.

H.R. 800 also contains mandatory absolution provisions that are unfairly skewed toward union interests. The Bush Administration has announced that should the measure ever arrive at the President’s desk, it will be met with a veto.

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