-By Warner Todd Huston
The City Wire of Fort Smith, Arkansas, published a piece giving a former union leader space to announce that he opposes the elimination of the secret ballot that is the card check feature of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
His reasoning is spot on with why card check is a bad idea that will materially hurt American workers.
And then there is Neal Catlett, a former president of the union representing workers at Whirlpool’s Fort Smith plant who has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the local union.
Catlett, now retired from Whirlpool, opposes card check. He told The City Wire that he has seen plenty of “nonsense” among Whirlpool leaders and union leaders to know that anything other than a secret ballot will lead to intimidation, coercion and corruption on all sides.
“I strongly support secret ballots. Period. It doesn’t matter at what level, whether it is voting for a union or the president or your congressman,” Catlett said. “Your ideas should be personal as to if you want a union or don’t want a union.”
Catlett doesn’t argue with union leaders who say the current labor rules make it too tough and are tilted in the favor of business. But he says card check is the wrong way to create a more level playing field. And he also says unions use the same coercion and intimidation used by business owners.
“Doing away with the secret ballot is not good for the unions. It’s not good for any business. … Open voting creates an atmosphere of intimidation. It creates an atmosphere where people will use your opinion against you. I’ve seen the threats and I’ve actually seen the physical conflict, if you know what I mean, come from the business side and from the union side,” Catlett said. “I just don’t see how any process that is not private will protect the worker.”
Right from the mouth of a former union boss and right on. Union thugs will be unleashed by this bill. It needs to be torpedoed.
There’s still much work ahead to defeat this un-American and anti-democratic law.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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