First of all, it is laughable that the TNGOP would defend workers rights to anything - especially when it comes to voting. You'll remember that just a few weeks ago, Tennessee Republicans in the General Assembly effectively killed a bipartisan attempt to get verifiable paper ballots for Tennessee's election system. And whether it's their opposition to the renewal in 2006 of the Voting Rights Act, their desire to throw out legally cast ballots in Florida in the 2000 presidential election, their opposition to full respesentation rights for residents of Washington DC, there are literally dozens of other examples nationally of Republicans trying to restrict the right to vote.  But now they are suddenly supportive of "secret ballot elections" when it comes to workers forming unions.  What gives?

Well, first of all, this is a fake debate. The Employee Free Choice Act would allow workers to decide whether they want a secret ballot election or just to submit an authorization card that effectively counts as a vote on whether or not they want a union. This has nothing to do with "protecting the secret ballot" and everything to do with how union organizing drives and elections are held. I explained this in greater detail in a column last year, but to make a long story short...

When a group of workers decide they want to form a union, they currently are forced into an election system that is rigged in favor of the employer. Under the current regulatory system, it is Management, not the workers, that determine when a union election is held. This is key. Companies traditionally try to push back the date as long as possible in order to have time to identify union supporters, threaten them, bribe them, or fire them. All of this is illegal of course, and there are fines attached to companies who violate this law. But companies write those penalties off as the cost of doing business and continue to scare employees into not forming a union. What EFCA would do would be to allow the workers to decide whether the whole process would even be done with an election or whether employees would sign a card indicating their support. If more than 50% of the bargaining unit signed cards, the company would have to recognize them and begin bargaining in good faith.  That's another loophole that EFCA closes.  Currently, even if a group of workers hold a secret ballot election and vote for union representation, a company drags its feet and refuses to begin bargaining a first contract.  Again, this gives the company time to enact retribution against employees who supported a union and it frustrates and demoralizes workers who are paying union dues but who don't have a contract thanks to the company's obstructionism.

Meanwhile, the foes of EFCA continue to paint this as "unions taking away the secret ballot". It's just not true. The workers, not the bosses, make the decision on whether to hold an election if EFCA passes. And no, opponents' claims of threats and intimidation to workers by "union bosses" is nonsense. Anybody who uses a little common sense knows that employees are afraid of retaliation by their employer, not by union organizers who are trying to make a good impression on workers in persuading them to form a union.

I encourage you to find out more about the Employee Free Choice Act and get the facts, not the spin. And on behalf of the thousands of SEIU members in Tennessee, I applaud Reps. Turner, Moore, and Jones for standing against Big Business interests and standing up for Tennessee's working families.