U.S. workers' right to a secret ballot must be protected

By John E. Sununu

“God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.”

-- Daniel Webster

Private ballot elections, or the right to vote in secret, have been a fundamental article of faith in free societies for so long that it’s hard to imagine it ever being otherwise. Americans haven’t thought of having it any other way for more than two centuries, and most of us are shocked to hear that there are still places in the world where the right to vote one’s conscience is commonly denied.

Now union bosses want to upend this centuries-old bedrock principle, and the Democrats they helped put in control of Congress are going along. Last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill nearly along party lines that strips workers of the right to a secret ballot in voting for or against a union. The Senate takes up the same bill this week. Members who place a high value on liberty and personal freedom should simply say no to this power grab.

The so-called “Employee Free Choice Act” is anything but. By reversing the decades-long practice of secret ballots at the workplace, its enactment would force workers to stand up and declare their vote in front of both union bosses and employers – subjecting them to intimidation and coercion by both. Far from granting free choice, the legislation promises to deny it at the workplace and to potentially erode the foundations of free elections everywhere else.

It’s no secret why big labor interests are pushing the bill. Over the last few decades, union membership in America has plunged from 34% of the workforce to 12% today. The union bosses are rightly worried about their political future, and they are asking the Democrats in Congress to do their dirty work. It’s no accident that the Senate’s Democratic leadership decided to turn to the legislation the same week union organizers gather in Washington to rally for the bill.

Both parties in Congress used to defend the secret ballot. In 2001, a group of Democrats in the House sent a strongly-worded letter to government officials in Mexico urging them to reconsider a similar measure there: “We feel the secret ballot is absolutely necessary to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose,” they wrote. It’s hard to disagree with that.

Indeed, the vast majority of Americans, including union members, do agree. Recent surveys show that 78% of union members think Congress should keep the law the way it is. Other surveys show that 89% of people believe that secret ballots better protect the individual rights of workers. Even the bill’s authors realize that a secret-ballot vote is preferable: they may be calling for a publicly declared vote in forming a union, but, incredibly, their bill requires a secret ballot to disband one!

Casting a ballot free from intimidation is essential to our democracy. For more than 200 years, the United States has enshrined in our election system that every American has the right to vote free from intimidation. The irony is that last year’s election is the catalyst behind this recent effort to remove voter protections for workers. Union bosses put in a lot of time and money last fall into winning back a privileged place at the table. The cost to the rest of us may be the freedoms that got them there in the first place.

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