“Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy?” – James Phillip Hoffa, March 10, 2009. Before ramming the Employee Free Choice Act down the throats of American workers, maybe Jim Hoffa and his Teamsters should have cracked open the history books. The secret ballot, like democracy itself, was born in classical Antiquity. Ironically, given Big Labor’s backing of EFCA, modern usage of the secret ballot originated within the organized labor movement: A demand for secret ballot elections was one of the six original points of Chartism—a U.K. …
Democracy itself is under attack from union bosses. Teamsters President Jim Hoffa issued a press release Wednesday saying, “Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy?” He’s trying to excuse the inexcusable. Hoffa and other union bosses want to strip away workers’ right to a secret ballot election when deciding whether their workplace will join a union. The “card check” bill in Congress would let unions bypass the election process. Hoffa’s comment echoes the head of Utah’s AFL-CIO, who recently called a secret ballot guarantee, “unnecessary and …
