Will This Vote Affect Your Workplace?

Workplace Buzz on June 26, 2007 7:20 AM

Karen Kerrigan, for Hawaii Reporter, writes that small firms are at risk under mandatory "card check" approach sought by labor bosses.

Editor's note: It is anticipated that the United States Senate will vote Tuesday, June 26 on the controversial "card check" mandate bill, which eviscerates the long-standing private vote that employees currently enjoy in deciding whether they want to join a union.

Washington, D.C. — So, you make the daily trek to the office one morning anticipating a typical business-owner type of day. At the early morning staff get-together it is announced by one employee: "We are on our way to becoming a union shop."

How could this be? Doesn't the federal government get involved here? How does this person know how the rest of my employees feel on this issue?

Well, a bill moving through the U.S. House, ironically called the "Employee Free Choice Act," H.R. 800, aims to fully change the rules of the game when it comes to union organizing. The long-standing "secret ballot" system, where employees cast a private vote for or against union representation in a federally-supervised election, would be replaced with a mandatory "card-check" approach.

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