Few card-check backers address the anti-deliberative aspects of card check. If an union organizer contacts 51 of 100 employees serially, and all 51 card check, and the cards go to NLRB, would not the 49 employees who never had a chance to participate or deliberate with their co-workers be cheated?

While on balance I think that unionization benefits employees, there are aspects of unionization that are worth having employees discuss. Consider dues as a percentage of salary. At NYU, adjuncts get a 3% raise under the collective contract, but dues are 1.15% of salary, so raises are effectively 1.8%. That might be better than what existed prior to unionization, but we don’t have data on that to be sure.

If the process of unionizing is not deliberative, why expect that union governance will be? After all, employers are going to continue to threaten during the bargaining stages, which is where the real payoff to the worker comes in.

There is some serious contrary evidence: according to Zogby, last labor day, 74% said they would not want to be a member of a labor union, and they say that’s the worst score since 1981. Since that’s consistent with observed trends in union representation, that’s rather easier to believe.

And why is the Hart data you referenced so spiky in the ‘00s? Did they mix up the last data points that they show as crossing over in a big way? The graph’d be alot smoother if that’s what happened, as well as more consistent with Zogby’s results.

Gallup agrees with the high overall approval rating of unions. But Harris also has another poll that shows “great confidence in leaders of organized labor” at 12%.

And, of course, the behavior of management is really all that matters, isn’t it? Never mind all that piffle about workplace democracy, dignity and empowerment. As long as the boss is a benevolent dictator, why shouldn’t the hired hands be happy and grateful?

“BTW, I think I should underscore that I like having unions around”

Brett, I would say ‘stop lying’, but that’s futile, so I’ll just say that nobody here believes you. And that includes your fellow rigbht-wing union-haters.

It’s an interesting question, I think: What percentage of the workforce being unionized is optimal from the perspective of the average worker? It certainly isn’t zero, but it sure as heck isn’t 100% either.

That would be a remarkably stupid view to hold, and I don’t. The secret ballot disallows individualized retaliation for the votes people cast, and that’s not “all” intimidation. It is, however, well worth disallowing, and I have a rather low regard for people who want to allow it, just because they think the side they like will be chiefly guilty of that offense.

As for how I explain a poll showing more workers wanting unions, than end up in unions? First, I reject catagorically the notion that if a poll conflicts with a secret vote, it’s proof there’s something wrong with the secret vote.

And second, I want a classic Stingray. Have for decades. I don’t have one. Gee, I guess somebody must be waving a club over my head, keeping me from getting one. Couldn’t possibly be that every time I take a serious look at getting one, I conclude it isn’t worth the cost and trouble.

In the context of union organizing drives, just like in the context of elections, saliency of choices goes up, and people start gathering information and thinking about things. This frequently has the effect of changing people’s minds.

Again, I reject catagorically the notion that, if people change their preferences once a campaign has begun in earnest, it’s because they were improperly influenced.

Finally, management saying to workers, “If you unionize, we’ll have to reduce our workforce, we may even move the work to another location, or go out of business.” is no more intimidation, than unions saying to workers, “If you unionize, you’ll get higher pay, and better benefits.” is bribery. I can understand why advocates of unionization wouldn’t want any potential downsides of unionizing mentioned by management, I just don’t find that desire normative.

I wouldn’t call it a balance of terror, either. Ideally the point is to pre-empt all attempts to intimidate, not to give each side a more equal leverage to intimidate. Needless to say, there will of course remain some intimidation, but there will be a much lower amount than exists currently. Again, we can look to evidentary arguments for this—cf Canada, whose unions aren’t exactly engaged in a perpetual war to crush dissent and murder defectors.

Secret ballots are in general a good institution to have, but they aren’t the be-all-and-end-all of democracy. Like I alluded to in my earlier post, the USSR had them, and CPSU apparatchiks were still quite able to intimidate people into voting as they wanted (well past the post-Stalin era, too, so it wasn’t the violent type of intimidation either). Why is it so hard to think that management has the means and the motive to do the same, and that other more effective institutions might better serve the purpose of workplace democracy?

Secret ballots are a safeguard. They protect the voter against individualized intimidation by BOTH sides. Abolishing them enables intimidation, it doesn’t protect against it. If you think employers are intimidating workers into voting (secretly!) against unions, you’re proposing to hand them a shiny new club to wave around.

Brett continues to ignore the real world, in favor of some imaginary land where unions and employers wield equivalent power. Under the existing system, the only thing secret ballots safeguard is the bosses’ interest in keeping unions out. The empirical evidence is clear: workers are subject to far less employer intimidation in card check campaigns; yet (counter-intuitive though this may seem to those whose knowledge of labor unions comes from sensationalist Hollywood movies and TV), there is simply no evidence of increased union coercion in card check campaigns.

I’ve watched more people than I can remember being fired in unionization struggles.
Finally, last year, I was suprised when two women were rehired- because the boss got in trouble with the powers that be in prolabor Massachusetts. I was glad when those women got their miserable, low paid jobs back; glad that they had someone intimidating on their side.

Here’s the problem: That’s like saying, “I’m all for trial by jury, so long as we have the Miranda rule, but if we’re not going to have Miranda, I’d rather have trial by ordeal.”

Secret ballots are a safeguard. They protect the voter against individualized intimidation by BOTH sides. Abolishing them enables intimidation, it doesn’t protect against it. If you think employers are intimidating workers into voting (secretly!) against unions, you’re proposing to hand them a shiny new club to wave around. Why does this not bother you, given that you DO think the employer is willing to intimidate?

“Management will always have a great deal more means to intimidate. The government will always be willing to look the other way when it does. Workers want to overcome both of these so that they might have a union.”

And there’s the answer: You take management intimidation, (Very broadly defined indeed, of course!) as a given, and want to remove a protection against individualized intimidation to provide unions with a countervailing weapon.

You don’t want freedom from intimidation, you want a ballance of terror.

I’ll join you in a second in saying that, all other things being equal, secret ballots are a good thing. In a better world, there’d be no need for legislation like EFCA. Of course, you can go on to say that in an even better one there’d be no need for unions or, going even further, private property. Which just goes to show we deal with the world we have, not the one we might want or wish to have at a later time.

In the world we live in that the reality-based community has to deal with, corporate and management intimidation is much broader and deeper than union intimidation. This statement is not a matter of opinion; it’s an empirical question, and the big disconnect between the percentage of workers in a union and those who want to be in a union is prima facie evidence that the statement is true. You have yet to provide evidence otherwise. Nor is there any reason to think that supporting card check cause a flood of union intimidation (cf Canada).

How, then, can we best support workplace democracy? We look at the institutions and institutional interests we have, and build from there. Management will always have a great deal more means to intimidate. The government will always be willing to look the other way when it does. Workers want to overcome both of these so that they might have a union. If you believe in workplace democracy—which is to say, the workers being able to form a union if the non-intimidated majority wants one—you clearly must support card check.

Now, if you oppose workplace democracy, that’s an altogether different story. But it’d be crass to accuse someone of that.

Say, a fine of 10% of the company’s net worth for each violation, and 20 years in prison (no parole) for any manager who participated in illegal practices during a campaign.

Somehow, I suspect the companies would rather have card check. The only reason they support “secret ballot” elections is that it gives them months during which they can fire union organizers, threaten to shut down the plant, and pretty much do anything they want without any substantial legal penalty. (The current NLRB sanctions are a joke – wrongly fired employees can at most win back pay, with an offset for whatever else they earned during the time, with no punitive sanctions whatsoever.)

I basically don’t think that employers should have the opportunity to argue against unionisation beyond the opportunity they have every day. Their everyday arguments range from the ability to make workers very uneasy about the propsect of them pulling their capital to treating the workers in a way that undermines the enthusiasm for conflict (well, in other words). I’ve seen a good number of organising efforts, and the people here who think employers are nice chaps always ready to play by the rules know different employers than the ones I’m seen. And different ones than Henry is reporting on.(I’ve know some absolutely delightful capitalists, too, even worked for one, but I don’t think even they really thought they were the norm).

Partly because individual freedom matters, and partly because there are temptations to abuse which are collectively self-defeating for the labour movement, it is important to devise systems that protect workers against intimidation by one another. So sure, figure out a way to protect workers from both sorts of intimidation. But don’t defend the status quo as superior on intimidation grounds.