Now let me see if I can present this incredible story to you in an understandable manner. We'll start with the issue – union elections. More specifically, attempts to unionize workforces. I want you to stick with me here because after I do a bit of explaining I'm going to expose you to one of the most blatant examples of political hypocrisy I've ever come across.
Going in you need to recognize that union membership has been falling for decades. You only see growth in union membership in government employee unions. This, of course, is troubling to union leaders. It is also troubling to Democrats. Unions, you see, almost exclusively support Democrat candidates, both with money and time. Big money and lots of time.
Here's the way union organizing works under the current law. Union organizers circulate a petition among employees. Employees are asked to sign a card saying that they would like to be represented by a union in their workplace. If a majority of the workers sign the cards the employer has the option of immediately recognizing the union and allowing them to organize the workplace. More often the employer will call for an election – an election using secret ballots. Every employee will be given the opportunity to express their desire to join or not to join a union by secret ballot. Their co-workers will not know how they voted. They can prance around the workplace touting their support of unionization all they want in order to impress their fellow workers, especially those who are trying to organize the union, but then vote "no" on the secret ballot if that's how they truly feel.
How, you might ask, do Democrats feel about the secret ballot in union elections? For a clue let's go to a letter I have in my possession from 16 House Democrats dated August 29, 2001. The letter was written on the letterhead of California Congressman George Miller, a Democrat representing the 7th District of California. I'm going to replicate the letter here. By the end of the show I hope to have a PDF file of the letter posted for you to look at. After all ... I could be lying, right? Note, please, just how the 16 Democrats who signed this letter felt about secret ballots in union elections.
OK ... so there you go. These 16 Democrats are on the record as being solidly in favor of using secret ballots in union recognition elections. So far, so good ... because that, as they point out in their letter, is clearly the right stance.
That brings us to piece of legislation designated as H.R. 800, the Employee Free Choice Act. In case you haven't already heard me talking about this, would you care to guess just what H.R. 800 does? Well, that's simple. It will eliminate the secret ballot in union recognition elections. You got it! The Democrats (it's their bill) have decided to really do something nice for the union bosses that support them year after year, and they're going to do away with secret ballots. When H.R. 800 gets passed ... and trust me, with Barack Obama (he's a sponsor of the Senate version) in the White House, this thing will become law. Then the union organizers will visit all of the workers, perhaps even visiting some of them in their homes, and "urge" them to sign the card calling for a union. I can hear it now: "Mrs. Johnson, wouldn't you and your children want your husband to be represented by our union at his job?" Now put yourself in the worker's place! Are you going to say no? This organizer is sitting in your living room looking at you and your wife and saying "You do want to be represented by our union in your workplace, don't you?" And you're going to tell him no?
Are you getting the big picture here? This is nothing less than the Democrats legitimizing union intimidation in the workplace. If you don't see that, then there is virtually no hope for you when it comes to understanding basic politics. It's payback the unions time .. pay them back for all of that financial support and all of those volunteer hours. Besides ... the more union members there are the more union dues the union bosses have to spread to Democrats as campaign contributions.
But – we're saved, right? After all, we have those 16 Democrats who signed that letter to Mexico. What was it they said: Oh yeah: " ... 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 chose." So these 16 Democrats will certainly put up a spirited defense of secret ballots in union organizing elections, right?
Well ... um ... maybe not. You see, four of these congressmen (Dooley, Sabo, Evans and Coyne) are no longer in the Congress. One of the signers, Bernie Sanders, is now a Senator. That leaves 11 of the 16 signees in still in the house to defend the principal of the secret ballot.
I'm afraid we have a small problem though. It seems that every one of the 11 remaining signees is now a sponsor of H.R. 800. In fact, the so-called Employee Free Choice Act was actually introduced by none other than George Miller – the very California Democrat on whose letterhead that letter to Mexico was written. Bernie Sanders is a sponsor of the same legislation in the Senate. No surprise.
Pardon me ... but ... what the hell?
On the one hand we have these Democrats writing a letter extolling the virtues of a secret ballot in union organizing elections, and then they sponsor a bill eliminating those very secret ballots! So what changed between 2001 and 2007? What happened that made these 12 Democrats go from believing that a secret ballot in a union election was "absolutely necessary," to introducing a bill eliminating those "absolutely necessary" secret ballots? Control of congress; that's what changed. In 2001 the Republicans ran the show. In 2007 it was the Democrats ... and it was time to return some favors to union bosses. Do you know what you're seeing here? You're seeing just how much power unions have over Democrats and the Democrat party. It doesn't matter what kind of letter you wrote, or what stance you took in the past --- when we say "frog" you had better jump.
Just another reason to vote for The Chosen One, right?
