I came across an interesting law review article by Craig Becker, who is one of Pres. Obama’s picks for the National Labor Relations Board.

In Democracy in the Workplace, Becker concludes “that that employers should be stripped of any legally cognizable interest in their employees’ election of representatives.”

Along the way to reaching his unfounded conclusion, Becker quotes Senator Robert F. Wagner, sponsor of the National Labor Relations Act, who wrote:

“[A]s to representation of the workers you cannot have any more genuine democracy than this. We say under Government supervision let the workers themselves … go into a booth and secretly vote, as they do for their political representatives in a secret ballot, to select their choice…[This] is what I call the tenets of democracy.”

That reminded me of our new bus ads driving around Washington, D.C. quoting Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa, Jr.’s opposition to secret ballot elections: “Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenant of democracy?” (Hoffa’s people subsequently removed the press release from their website. Apparently someone thought he was a little out of line.)

Since 1935, sir.