Secret Ballot Elections and Card Check Schemes

Deciding whether or not to support a union seeking recognition is among the most important workplace decisions an employee may have to make. Our nation's labor laws provide a mechanism -- federally supervised secret ballot elections -- to ensure that workers can obtain necessary information from all sides during an organizing campaign while protecting employee privacy and reducing the opportunity for coercion. Unfortunately, while the law provides for secret ballot elections, it does not require them and today unions are more likely to seek representation through "card check" campaigns that do not include the important protections provided for in law. Under a card check campaign an employee would typically be given a union authorization card by a union organizer and asked right then and there to indicate whether he or she supports the union. Unfortunately, as demonstrated countless times in actual organizing campaigns, card check campaigns are often accompanied by stories of union coercion, intimidation, and abuse, including threats of physical harm to employees or their family members.

As recognized by numerous federal courts, card checks provide a less accurate reflection of employees' desires than secret ballot elections. Nevertheless, organized labor is pushing legislation (EFCA, H.R. 800) to effectively do away with secret ballot elections by permitting unions to waive elections after a majority of employees sign authorization cards. In addition, card check procedures have been abused by unions that launch attacks on employers, called corporate campaigns, in an effort to pressure companies to agree to card check and neutrality agreements even where it's not clear that a majority of the employees actually support the union.