Hillary Clinton’s campaign is crying foul over alleged voter intimidation in Nevada, after two workers reported that the Culinary Workers Union — one of the most powerful unions in the state and a division of UNITE-HERE — intimidated them to vote for Obama.
…Under the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act, secret-ballot elections to decide whether a plant is unionized would be replaced with a public “card check” system, under which both employers and union organizers would know how each worker voted.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is crying foul over alleged voter intimidation in Nevada, after two workers reported that the Culinary Workers Union — one of the most powerful unions in the state and a division of UNITE HERE — intimidated them to vote for Obama.
That got former National Economic Council Director Larry Lindsey thinking that maybe Clinton would come to terms with her endorsement of the terribly misnamed Employee Free Choice Act. Lindsey wrote in this morning’s Washington Post:
I wonder if, having seen such voter intimidation, the Clinton campaign will change its position on doing away with government-supervised secret-ballot elections for union representation. Under the Orwellian-named Employee Free Choice Act, secret-ballot elections to decide whether a plant is unionized would be replaced with a public “card check” system, under which both employers and union organizers would know how each worker voted. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Obama and former senator John Edwards all support this bill.
But a card-check system would offer even more room for intimidation of workers. A union card can be signed by workers at any time during an organizing campaign, which can take many months. Union organizers can pursue workers in their homes, at churches and civic clubs, and at watering holes after hours. Workers’ family members can also be intimidated during this process. So much for a “free choice” for employees.
The bill assaults workers’ rights in other ways, too. For example, it would make it a crime for management to raise pay or improve working conditions while a plant is being organized. So the only way to get a raise would be to get the campaign over with and bring the union in. Such an arrangement might strike some as government-mandated intimidation.