The AFL-CIO's vast right-wing conspiracy continues
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney lambasted President Bush at the first-ever global summit on organizing at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland. Sweeney stated that:
President Bush and his cronies have done all they can to destroy workers’ rights around the world. The truth is until we are able to restore basic workers’ rights in the United States, the worldwide decline will not stop.
Sweeney’s solution: the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act . Apparently, in the AFL-CIO President’s mind, a restoration of workers’ rights involves the removal of the very basic right to a secret ballot election.
The AFL-CIO seems unable to recognize that workers’ rights are not the same thing as union organizing successes. Perhaps their lack of concern for workers’ free choice is one of the major reasons that private sector unionization raters are at an all time low.
It is articles like this that show how out of touch union organizers are with rank-and-file workers. Contrary to Acuff’s belief that secret ballot elections deny workers’ their right to unionize, elections protect a workers' free choice, by allowing them to make a selection by secret ballot free from any immediate pressure or coercion. The utter ignorance of this statement is only compounded by the painfully obvious fact that the writer has never been in an organizing campaign and is obviously biased in writing on this subject; sadly the carrier he has chosen asks this of him. As a union Ironworker in a “Right to work” state I am involved in many campaigns in which WORKERS rights are violated. I was at one time an unwilling participant in a campaign and had many reservations during the campaign on the company I worked for at the time. As time past it became obvious where the companies intentions lye. Regardless, back to the statement this gentlemen is making concerning secret ballots, SECRET BALLOTS ARE HELD IN NATIONS AROUND THE WORLD WHERE IT IS OBVOISE THERE IS NO DEMACRATIC INTENTION BY INTEDIES THAT HOLD THEM WHAT MAKES IT DEMOCRATIC IS WHEN A BALLOT IS HELD FREE OF COURSIONS AND OUT SIDE PRESURE ON THE VOTERS CASTING THAT BALLOT. IN THE 10 YEARS AS A UNION MEMBER AND PARTISAPATION IN THESE CAMPAINS I HAVE YET TO SEE THE ABOVE STATEMENT COME TO PASS.