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With a new Congress in place, organized labor leaders have renewed the call for lawmakers to pass the so-called “Employee Free Choice Act.” This misnamed legislation would end the rights of employees to secret ballot elections when determining whether they wish to unionize, instead subjecting them to “card check.” Under card check, unions can win new members simply by collecting signatures on cards, a system under which employees have no right to a private vote on whether unionization would be best.

A process rife with intimidation and fraud, card check has been blasted by editorial boards from several leading publications. The Hartford Courant made the point that under card check, “union organizers openly solicit and even coerce workers to sign cards saying they would like to join a union.” The Miami Herald's editors wrote: “[T]he best way to get an accurate and fair determination of what the workers want is through a secret ballot administered by the National Labor Relations Board.” The Economist put it simply: “The case for abolishing secret ballots is hard to make.”