The Bureau of National Affairs Daily Labor Report has some interesting figures that cast doubt on Big Labor’s drive to push the coyly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act.” The bill would replace secret ballot elections — where employees deciding whether to join a union get an honest-to-goodness vote in private — with an open process subject to intimidation, coercion and confusion. From BNA (subscription required):
The number of representation elections held in 2006 decreased to 1,648 from 2,142 in 2005, continuing an annual decline in NLRB elections since 1996 when about 3,300 elections were conducted by the agency. The number of elections won by unions also decreased to 1,014 in 2006, from 1,315 in 2005.
The union win rate, however, increased slightly to 61.5 percent of all representation elections in 2006, from 61.4 percent in 2005. Unions have won more than half of all representation elections in each of the past 10 years. (emphasis added)
Union bosses claim they can’t win government-overseen elections because employers harass employees. The opposite is clearly true, and it’s a trend that has gone on for ten years!
Even more interesting is that SEIU officials — who are leading the charge against allowing real elections — are doing better than ever in winning elections, according to BNA:
The Service Employees International Union [won] 121 [elections] or 72.9 percent in 2006. In 2005, SEIU participated in 196 elections, winning 137 or 69.9 percent.
So the real question is: if the rhetoric about winning elections is false, why do union bosses really want to deny working Americans democracy on the job?
