Claims that the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) would destroy the right to a secret ballot in union elections are “nonsense,” one of organized labor’s biggest congressional proponents said Wednesday.
“They understand what’s at stake in this election, and this whole nonsense about the end of the secret ballot,” Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.) said of the workers who have been following congressional developments on EFCA, or “card check.”
Hare called arguments to the contrary right-wing propaganda.
“If 30 percent of the people who sign the card say they want a secret election, they get a secret election,” Hare said on the Fox Business Network. “I think this is once again propaganda by the right. They’re all scared to death that somehow ordinary people will have someone to go to bat and bargain for them.”
Hare, a onetime president of his local union, said he’s willing to “roll the dice” on behalf of workers who wish to organize, and accused businesses of being “scared” into opposing the piece of legislation.
“This is typical of business that are just scared to death that somehow employees are going to be able to determine their own destiny.”