Second thoughts in Congress on card check

Something unexpected is happening - or, rather, not happening - in Congress these days. Nearly a month into the Democrats’ Brave New World, the top-priority legislation of the party's Big Labor allies is nowhere in sight. Perhaps this is because all the latest developments argue strenuously against even holding a vote on Big Labor's "card check" legislation to eliminate secret ballots in union organizing.

Thank goodness.

"Card check," officially and misleadingly called the Employee Free Choice Act, actually has two components. The first would allow a workplace to be unionized if just 50 percent of its employees sign a "card," or petition, requesting it. The petition would be open for all to see - employers, co-workers, union bosses. Without a secret ballot, the chances for intimidation grow exponentially. That alone makes the proposal particularly noxious.

The second provision would mandate that a government arbitrator set employment contracts for any business where employers and unions cannot agree on contract terms within four months. Both the workers and the business owners would lose their contract rights to the dictates of a bureaucrat. So much for free enterprise.

Fortunately, word is getting out about how bad this bill really is. It's not just businessmen like former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who call the bill "calamitous." Traditionally pro-labor Democrats such as former presidential candidate George McGovern and the Rev. Al Sharpton have spoken strongly against it. Both of Arkansas' Democratic U.S. senators, Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln, have recently reversed course by making statements indicating zero enthusiasm for bringing it up for a vote. And a new poll by McLaughlin and Associates shows that even 74 percent of members of union households oppose the card check provision.

Finally, union bosses themselves are falling out of favor. The Service Employees International Union is implicated in last week's indictment of former New York State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Across the country, members of an Oakland (Calif.) local were threatening to "take it to the streets" over a dispute with the national SEIU in which the locals say the SEIU is taking away their union voting rights. And the United Auto Workers union bosses were widely blamed and deservedly so for contributing greatly to the dire straits at the top three U.S. automakers.

All of which explains why this a terrible time for any major legislation to be closely identified with union leaders, especially a bill that on its face violates the secret ballot, a central tenet of American democracy.