A few years ago, 16 of Congress’ most liberal members wrote Mexico’s government, “We understand that the secret ballot is allowed for, but not required, by Mexican labor law. However, we feel that the secret ballot is absolutely necessary in order to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.”
The nominee as new U.S. secretary of labor, Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Calif., in 2007 protested that a secret ballot should be used by the congressional Hispanic caucus to pick its new chairman.
But all these members of Congress reversed course when American labor union bosses asked for a change in the law so they could bypass secret ballots by workers when deciding whether to organize a union. And the unions backing the change had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the last elections, trying to reverse the rapid decline of unionism in America.
They got their way when the U.S. House voted by 241-185 to approve the Employee Freedom of Choice Act – which actually reduces that very freedom. Rather than requiring secret ballot elections on joining a union, the law permits the unions to circulate “pledge cards” for workers to sign, even visiting their homes at midnight to “persuade” them.
No worker should be intimidated, abused or coerced into joining or not joining a union. Whether the bullying is by labor or by management, it’s equally wrong.
Only a Senate filibuster blocked the measure from becoming law, but the new more-liberal Senate majority might now overcome a filibuster and submit the measure to an eager-to-sign President Barack Obama.
Contrary to popular belief, there is no federal constitutional protection for secret ballots. Only when Grover Cleveland was elected president in 1892 did Americans first enjoy the protection of secret ballots. An out-of-touch Congress can take away that right, and is about to do so in the workplace. If it does it there, it can do it anywhere. Yet it is the secret ballot process that protects all of our other key American rights, giving us:
- Freedom from intimidation
- Freedom of choice
- Freedom of conscience
There is a solution: We can use state laws and state constitutions to create protection for secret ballots even if the federal government refuses to guarantee this right. Although they cannot reduce the rights declared in the U.S. Constitution, states can enlarge those rights. We benefit from the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, who created a federal system so that states can protect rights even if the national government does not.
This is why Save Our Secret Ballots has been created. Starting in five states (Arkansas, Arizona, Missouri, Nevada and Utah), the initiative and referendum process will be used to ask voters to place this language in their state constitutions:
The right of individuals to vote by secret ballot is fundamental. Where state or federal law requires elections for public office or public votes on initiatives or referenda, or designations or authorizations of employee representation, the right of individuals to vote by secret ballot shall be guaranteed.
Similar efforts will soon be launched in more states.
The secret ballot has become the hallmark of civil rights in America, allowing all of us to vote without fear or reprisal. When the presidential election in 2000 hinged on Florida’s votes, everyone involved expressed the need to protect the secret ballot – to honor the intent and the actions of voters.
The United States supports secret ballot elections in emerging democracies around the world. Our soldiers fought and died in Iraq and elsewhere to establish this right. How ironic it would be for Congress to support secret ballot elections in other countries and to elect its own leadership, while ending a guarantee of secret ballot elections for employees.
From picking our class president in the fifth grade to the last time we went to the polls, closed the curtain and voted, most of us have assumed voting by secret ballot is a protected right. It’s time to make sure that it is.
