Maine: Card Check Violates Worker Privacy
According to the Portland Press Herald:
The relationship between unions and management has been strained over the past few decades.
Despite this rift, there was consensus that the process used to organize workers into a union was fair and respected the rights of all parties involved.
For the past 70 years, the National Labor Relations Board has overseen and protected the union-organizing process.
Under today's system, workers are entitled to an election to vote for or against organizing. A worker's vote is private, which means that the worker has the peace of mind that neither paid union representatives nor management will ever see how he or she voted.
The privacy built into this process keeps coercion and intimidation at bay and gives credibility to the voting results.
But now the nation is engaged in a debate over EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that could turn the unionizing process upside down.
This proposed legislation creates an unfair system that steps on workers' right to a private ballot vote to organize.
EFCA was presented to Congress earlier this year. In the House of Representatives, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., was the lead sponsor, while Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., was the lead sponsor in the Senate...click to continue.
