Boehner Statement Opposing Bill to Undermine Workers' Rights to Private Ballot Union Decision

Via email:

U.S. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) released a statement today opposing legislation introduced by Democrats in the House and Senate that would strip workers of the right to choose - freely and anonymously - whether to unionize, while leaving them open to harassment, intimidation, and union pressure.

Even though current law allows for unions to organize through either a federally-supervised private ballot election or a "card check" system - which allows union bosses to gather "authorization cards" purportedly signed by workers expressing their desire for the union to represent them - proponents of the ill-named "Employee Free Choice Act" would make intimidation-prone card checks mandatory so a worker's personal vote is made fully public in all cases. Boehner issued the following statement:

"There is nothing more sacred to a democracy than private voting rights, and this legislation is a blatant attempt to take those rights away from working men and women. Card checks notoriously leave workers vulnerable to intimidation, pressure, and threats - none of which has a place in the democratic process, be it in campaigns for public office or in organizing campaigns in the workplace.

"As public servants, we owe those we represent the same support for private voting in the workplace that we insist they have when they vote to send us to Congress in the first place. If Democrats are willing to take away a right as fundamental as the private ballot, what else could be in store?"