Who Are the Real Workplace Thugs?

By Kurt Kobelt

When in 2002 Saddam Hussein proclaimed himself the unanimous victor in a secret ballot election, then White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer protested, "You can't have free elections when the electorate goes to the polls in the knowledge that they have only one candidate, that candidate routinely murders and tortures opponents of the regime and the penalty for slandering that sole candidate is to have one's tongue cut out."

Most Americans would agree with his point that you have to look at the environment in which "secret ballots" are cast to know whether it is a genuinely democratic election.

Unfortunately, the State Journal's December 8 editorial opposing recent proposals to require employers to recognize a union if a majority of employees sign cards designating the union as their representative instead of through a secret ballot election as undemocratic (complete with a cartoon depicting unions as thugs) ignores the reality that the non-union workplace eerily resembles a one-party state when it comes to holding union elections.

Employers have always had the right to recognize a union without an election but few do. Instead, 75% of otherwise law abiding employers hire consultants who engage in shady "union avoidance" tactics designed to "persuade" employees who have already voted for a union by signing a card to change their minds--secure in the knowledge that illegal conduct takes years to prove and provides slap on the wrist "don't do it again" penalties.

The heavy-handed tactics used by employers are the workplace equivalent of the coercion used by dictators to conduct a sham election and include (according to www.EmployeeFreeChoiceAct.org):

• illegally firing workers in 1 in 5 union organizing campaigns;

• 51% threaten to close the plant if the union wins (legal so long as it is cast as a “prediction”);

• 92% require employees to listen to campaign propaganda while at work;

• 78% force workers to meet one-on-one with supervisors to talk about the union, who by election day know how most will vote.

The union challenger is not even allowed in the door. Even if the employer loses the election, 44% ignore the results by refusing to sign a contract with the victorious union.

Rough translation into the political realm: a dictator uses secret police to execute opponents, threatens to raze their houses, forces them to listen to anti-union propaganda from government-controlled media, and hauls them off for interrogations in the middle of the night. If he loses, he declares martial law.

Sure the analogy may be stretched, but it suffices to dispel the myth of naively assuming workplace elections are fair simply because they culminate in a secret ballot.

Public employers in 8 states and all employers in Canada have been required to recognize unions without elections for years. It's time employers stopped using the charade of preserving union representation elections to prevent the genuine workplace democracy and accountability they really fear if the 60 million workers who say in public opinion polls they want a union are permitted to have one.

– Kurt C. Kobelt is a Madison union-side attorney with Lawton & Cates who has been practicing for 28 years.