It’s universal when we want to protect people from the potential consequences of their vote.
The Secret Ballot from Wikipedia
I’ve heard so much about employer, union and co-worker intimidation of varying degrees. Is there any other situation that lends itself so overwhelmingly to the negative influences that the secret ballot was intended to deal with ?
I don’t think so.
Because we don’t know if the simple majority actually represents the simple majority after removing the possible influences of intimidation and bribery whether or not real or perceived
I have seen no specific, realistic example where a secret ballot prevented people from having a union when they really wanted it. My understanding is that you are using the discrepancy between the percent of people who supposedly want unions to the percent of people who have the as evidence that secret ballots don’t work. If so, I don’t believe any causality between the two has been made.
Long thread, so this may have been answered. What harm is created by keeping the secret ballot? However unlikely you think the harm is in removing it, what is the harm in keeping it? Why not have a secret ballot and remove all doubt, even if it essentially mirrors the card signing percentages?
Again, I don’t need anyone to explain to me why you happen to believe that no harm would occur if the secret ballot is restricted. My question is, what bad thing would occur if we keep the current model? If it would produce no real change in the result, why does anyone want the process to be altered?
Your description of the process for decert is accurate.
You’ve sent me down some interesting avenues with this one. Frankly, there’s a steep learning curve here because I wasn’t sure where to look. But I’ve found a few interesting tidbits and have the details on one particular case that should serve to illustrate the point.
Over here (warning: PDF) I found a list of secret ballot election results for June 2008 as ratified by the NLRB. There’s a lot of summary information and “how to read” at the beginning; the individual election results start on page 17. The first election marked LOST is for an attempt by the Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics & Allied Workers International Union (GMP) to organize the workers at the Progress Casting Group Inc. plant in New Hampton, IA. The result of the secret ballot, held on June 6 according to the New Hampton Tribune, was 24 to 64 against, representing 88 out of a total of 93 workers.
However, according to this site, the result of the card check process held prior to the election showed a minimum of 60 employees in favor of the union. (Unfortunately I haven’t found documents showing the NLRB’s certification of this number but I’m still looking.) The article says the card check was held earlier in the spring, but let’s get a little footloose here and say that the card check process was certified on May 29, giving the NLRB a week to set up elections. This means that in the course of seven days, roughly 40 of the people who supported a union in card check changed their minds completely and voted against the union in the election.
Can this be explained solely by union intimidation, or co-worker intimidation, or an unholy amalgam of both? Or do you admit the possibility that Progress Casting Group, Inc. used the delay between the card check and the election (maybe only a week but surely much longer) to conduct a hardball anti-union campaign in order to grind union support down?
Under the Employee Free Choice Act, that initial level of support (>=66%) would have resulted in automatic certification. Under current law, that level of support for de-certification would have gotten the union kicked to the curb straight away.
I wish I had the time to go through and research more of these lost elections. I suspect we’d see a lot more of this kind of thing. I also suspect that elections won on a secret ballot had a higher margin of support at the card-check stage. But the case I researched here illustrates my point that it’s not the idea of the secret ballot that’s flawed but its use as a delaying tactic by company management, no matter what the result of the card check, that is the problem here. Therefore its use in union organizing should be restricted.
Bo - thanks, brother.
The most sensible compromise to me would be require at least a 30% interest in certifying or decertifying, I suppose by card check since that seems to be the current method, followed by a secret ballot. The same procedure for each.
Of course I still believe it should be optional for each employee if they wanted to be part of the union or not, if that were the case I imagine that decert requests would drop. (no cite for that, just a gut instinct)
So the right thing to do is change the de-certification so that it also always requires the secret ballot.
Why change the certification process to allow possible intimidation by co-workers in favor of the union instead of changing the de-certification process to remove the possibility of intimidation by co-workers in favor of dumping the union?
Don’t make both processes bad to the same degree, make them both better by the same degree.
Up here in Canada we take decertification much more seriously, and we require a secret ballot after 50% + 1 signatures.
Not only that, but there are limited windows of opportunity, and employers are barred from any participation whatsoever or the application fails.
From LabourWatch
Are you reading what Bo and I have been saying? That’s how things work now. The only difference is when the level of support rises above 50% at card check - no secret ballot for decertification; secret ballot on employer’s demand for certification. In short, the secret ballot is dispensed with when the result is beneficial to the employers and invoked when it’s not.
Which is why I’m saying the secret ballot should be automatic in both cases.
Because the secret ballot for certification can only be demanded by the employer no matter what the result of the card check, and (as I’ve attempted to illustrate) is used as a delaying tactic to undermine union support. The decertification process is streamlined, and IMO acceptably so; now we need to streamline the certification process. The card-check process already exists, and no one has yet shown that the intimidation or coercion they experienced is systemic among unions organizing with this method; there is no grounds to believe that further restricting the use of the secret ballot by employers is going to open the gates to rampant union coercion.
Antinor, this response is directed at you as well.
Isn’t it equally likely, if not much more so, that in this particular example the majority of workers never supported unionization in the first place? That many people signed the cards simply to get the union organizers off their backs? You want us to infer that the company used hardball tactics to intimidate the workers (which should be pretty easy to find cites for, if they did it in only seven days) but the data as presented indicates the opposite of what you’re trying to show.
The data as presented says nothing about how quickly the card-check process went, so no inference can be made about how the union went about contacting the employees or the employees’ reaction to such contact. If I could find documentation on the case (still looking) we might have some idea about when the card-check process was initiated, when the results were certified, and thus how long of a period elapsed between card-check and the election. My guess, however, is that the card check process was a lot shorter than the period between card check and the election, which means one of two things:[ul][li]The union’s organizing campaign was so intensely intimidatory and coercive that it took the company that long to undo all the nasty work; or[/li]Support for the union was genuinely strong and it took the company that long to wear it down.[/ul]
And IMO, very unacceptably so.
In the event of a unionization effort that included me (very unlikely given where I live and my job, so this is purely hypothetical), and assuming the current rules, I would almost certainly sign the card saying I was in favor of the union if I had any inkling that any substantial portion of the employees were in favor. This in spite of the fact that I would almost certainly be against unionization. I would sign the card so the a vote could take place where everyone could have a say with no fear of reprisal.
Plus when three guys you have to work with everyday are loudly in favor of the union, you sign the card so they don’t bug you, then vote against in the secret ballot.
I think this is a sign that more people than just me may do one of the two things I mention above.
I’m not worried about organized coercion by the union or from the company. I’m worried about that 10% of employees in any company who are assholes taking it out in little ways every day on the people who have to work with them and who voted the way they didn’t, and who now know exactly who didn’t agree with them because there was no secret ballot.
Or that people who signed the cards for the union in a sort of “impulse buy” during the two or three day effort to get cards signed had time to consider that course and changed their minds.
There should always be a secret ballot, whether going toward or away from the union.
You haven’t explained how an open election will stop pressure tactics by the employer. The employer can still play hard-ball, they’ll just do it (in your example) one week earlier. For example, the employer can drop hints that anybody voting in favor will get the crappy tasks.
I’m not directing this at you personally; this seems to be coming from everyone on that side of the debate. I’m getting the distinct impression that discussing the issue openly, and being called on to justify your opinion, is so distasteful that talking out of both sides of your mouth seems to be an acceptable alternative.
There’s no guarantee that will happen.
I believe that falls under the heading of “Unfair Labor Practice” and it can be taken to arbitration. Also, since the length of time for a card check is assumed to be shorter (and I’m still looking for evidence either way) than the setup for a secret ballot, the company has less opportunity for the hardball tactics - and no recourse to the secret ballot delay if support exceeds 50% +1.
If getting the busybodies and assholes off my back means I smile and nod to their face and vote in private the other way, I’ll do it with no hesitation. They’re busybodies and assholes, what do I care if they think I’m on their side when I’m not? If this means I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth, so be it.
With a secret ballot there is a guarantee it can’t happen. Without a secret ballot it can happen, and I have seen it happen in similar situations.
They may be busybodies and/or assholes in your estimation, but at least they’re honest about what they think and willing to step up to the plate for it.
And in the tradition of not standing up to challenge them, you’ll naturally keep your mouth shut.