Gunpowder Chronicle posted on November 20, 2008 8:52 PM | Rating:
| Views: 95
The NAACP has decided, yet again, to abandon its storied past to whore for the nation's union bosses and the Democrat Party by boldly stepping out and endorsing the Employee Free Choice Act. For those of you who don't know, the Employee Free Choice Act abandons a bedrock principle of our republic by abandoning the secret ballot in union authorization campaigns. The secret ballot was also a key part of the century-long battle to give black men and women the right to vote.
Now, one can make the argument that the stakes here aren't as great and so why is this such a big deal. After all, unions today don't typically resort to fire-bombing and cross-burning to get workers to vote their way. Maybe not, because right now, those workers are protected. But we can be sure that -- just like Jim Crow -- union organizers will resort to the intimidation of calling out workers who don't sign authorization cards.
How do we know this? Because intimidation has always been part and parcel of ANY organization campaign. James Riddle Hoffa and his henchmen made the Teamsters master of this game in the 30s, 40s and 50s. And today's Teamsters have learned that lesson well. Just ask management and drivers at Overnite Transportation or UPS.
Today, its more subtle, and under the EFCA (or "card check"), it will be completely subtle and unseen. And any man or woman who is intimidated to vote a certain way -- no matter the threat or consequence -- is deprived their rights to live and work free of fear and in a non-hostile work environment.
Because the scenario will work like this. The union "organizer" will go around in the lunch room, picking off the new guys and the least-senior employees, cornering them with an authorization card -- in plain view of their co-workers. Privacy will no longer be a right for the worker -- everyone will know what you selected and how you selected. And intimidation will be the order of the day.
Unions are already playing this game. SEIU and its affiliates have already started playing an infiltration game trying to organize nurses in hospitals. They "plant" organizers on night and evening shifts -- the hardest to keep filled -- where they can press their case out of the sight of management and executive leadership, and amongst employees least likely to be able to assert their rights not to be harrassed.
So why is the NAACP endorsing a bill that deestablishes one of the most important concepts of our republic? The secret ballot is a keystone of true choice in our country. Individuals cannot choose freely if we allow others to bully and intimidate them. The ballot box must always remain secret -- whether for a national election, the election of the Kiwanis club president, or a choice for union representation.
For the NAACP to abandon this principle is disgusting and shameful. It shows that the NAACP has lost its position as preeminent civil rights organization and has whored itself to union bosses and their step-n-fetch-it comrades in the Democrat Party.