But, then I saw an interview with Harley Shaiken with the American Rights at Work organization. He spins so much you can get dizzy just listening to him. (Click on the video below.)
His issue is labor’s drive to either pre-empt or stop secret ballot votes inside companies where union proselytizers are trying to organize workers. Legislation allowing organizers to use sign up cards has wide support in the heavily Democratic Congress and Barack Obama promised his support often on the campaign trail.
Of course, big business and other management groups don’t like it, but their efforts to stop it appear to be futile at this point.
Shaiken appeared on Fox New Channel’s Your World with Neil Cavuto. He claimed labor is not against secret ballots. Well then, Cavuto asked, why are you pushing these petition cards? Shaiken’s response was lame and didn’t make any sense.
“If you join the American Legion, you don’t do using a secret ballot. If you join the National Rifle Association, you just join it…” And he was serious!
A major issue here is whether workers in a non-union shop would be pressured and intimidated to sign a petition card as opposed to being allowed to vote by secret ballot.
Shaiken insisted that this is not an attempt to drop the ballot option. But, he claimed, secret ballots serve management’s purposes while the registration/petition card actually offers more freedom to employees. When Cavuto suggested that this is labor’s way of using pressure tactics, Shaiken’s response was laughable: “Life is full of pressures.”
Big labor is spending $3,000,000 on their marketing campaign to get their petition card legislation passed and signed by the new president. If any labor leaders were watching that interview, though, they just might consider sending someone else other than Harley Shaiken to do their bidding in the media. Any messages he intended to get out were lost in the whirlpool of spin.