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Secret Ballot Elections
What it does: The Employee Rights Act requires that employees be given the right to have a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether or not to join a union.
Support: 75% of respondents were strongly/somewhat supportive.
Why: According to data from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), in 38% of all union recognitions in 2009, unions bypassed secret ballot elections and instead used card checks to unionize employees. Specifically, the NLRB reports that unions won 794 single-union representation elections. During that period, the NLRB recorded 485 notices of card check union recognition.
Background: Currently, unions can bypass secret ballot elections by using paid labor organizers to persuade workers to sign agreements authorizing union representation. Following that, they can pressure companies to "voluntarily" accept a “card check” recognition of the union. The process is unregulated, and anecdotal evidence suggests that signed agreement cards are often obtained through deception, coercion, and intimidation of employees.
By requiring a federally supervised secret ballot election, neither unions nor employers could deny employees the right to vote in private.