Excerpt of the Day: On Secret-Ballot Union Elections
From an editorial yesterday at OpinionJournal.com, recounting a heroic insistence by a group of congressmen demanding secret-ballot elections (excerpted items quoted out of order for effect):
It reads, “we are writing to encourage you to use the secret ballot in all union recognition elections.” It continues: “We understand that the secret ballot is allowed for, but not required ….. However, we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.”
Bully for them. But there’s a punch line, which is where it came from, namely:
….. a missive sent to Mexico in 2001 and signed by 16 Democrats in Congress.”
Five of the signers have since left Congress; the other 11 voted last week for the Employee Free Choice Act. And by the way, the letter’s lead signatory is Representative George Miller of California, who also happens to be the lead sponsor of the House bill. Which means the same person lecturing Mexican officials on the primacy of secret ballot elections has been heading up the effort to end them for 140 million U.S. workers.
