Video: Another cautionary Card Check tale

posted at 2:13 pm on March 25, 2009 by Ed Morrissey

In my numerous posts on Card Check, I remind people that the secret ballot in union organizing elections protects employees from both sides — unions that want to gain dues-paying members, and employers who don’t want to deal with unions. But what happens when an employer colludes with a union, bought off by the union for debt relief?  That scenario unfolded in Indiana, and employees there found no refuge from harassment, as Fox News reports:

[H]er larger point here is this: if there had not been card check, if there had been a secret ballot, nobody in the plant would have known how she voted and therefore she would have not been in a position of being threatened by her fellow employees.

In this case, the employees had to file a demand for a secret-ballot decertification vote immediately after their employer recognized the union, once they had strong-armed enough cards out of the workers.  They got rid of the union, but only after being bullied and harassed into certifying them through the card-check process.  This is a clear example of why employees need secret-ballot elections for unionization, and how Card Check can be used by union thugs into gaining access to workplaces illegitimately.

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Coercion…unions…nope, those two words don’t seem to repel each other….

ladyingray on March 25, 2009 at 2:16 PM

Jimmy Hoffa must be so proud.

Knucklehead on March 25, 2009 at 2:17 PM

I thought Card Check was safely dead…no?

pseudonominus on March 25, 2009 at 2:17 PM

Money-money-money-money, muhhhhhnay! Everything has a price now.

AubieJon on March 25, 2009 at 2:19 PM

I thought Card Check was safely dead…no?

pseudonominus on March 25, 2009 at 2:17 PM

Take no chances.

Ed Morrissey on March 25, 2009 at 2:22 PM

NO to Card Check, it’s DANGEROUS.

originalpechanga on March 25, 2009 at 2:23 PM

I thought Card Check was safely dead…no?

pseudonominus on March 25, 2009 at 2:17 PM

Nothing is safe until the teleprompter and his puppet are gone.

Guardian on March 25, 2009 at 2:23 PM

I can’t even imagine what my husband would say/do if a union thug showed up at our house to harrass us. I’d have to call 911 and say “get here quick before someone gets hurt.”

Oink on March 25, 2009 at 2:26 PM

Thanks Ed, I couldn’t find the link for this, I had written about it on another thread. I love it.

Cindy Munford on March 25, 2009 at 2:29 PM

I can’t even imagine what my husband would say/do if a union thug showed up at our house to harrass us. I’d have to call 911 and say “get here quick before someone gets hurt.”

Oink on March 25, 2009 at 2:26 PM

If I was still single I’d be in the same catagory as your hubby…now I have a wife to worry about though.

However, I express my 1st Amendment right every morning on my drive to work, there’s a office building being constructed right down the road from my place, and the crews are non-union. There’s a couple of hippy looking union protestors out in front of it every day with a big “SHAME ON…” sign.

Every morning, window goes down and middle finger goes up and out as I pass them. Highlight of my day sometimes.

Rogue on March 25, 2009 at 2:37 PM

This brilliant idea,brought to you,by caring and
compassionate freedom-loving,only for them,

Liberal Party!

canopfor on March 25, 2009 at 2:37 PM

Every morning, window goes down and middle finger goes up and out as I pass them. Highlight of my day sometimes.

Rogue on March 25, 2009 at 2:37 PM

You must have pretty boring, pathetic life.

Blueneck on March 25, 2009 at 2:42 PM

Knock,knock!

Hi,were from the Card Check Brown-Shirts Welcome Wagon,
and we’ve come to your house,to see if you will change
your mind on your voting,to see if we can change your
mistake,

and we would love to expand this,in the next Presidential
election,we hope!

Remember,as a Liberal,

free doesn’t mean free!(Snark)

canopfor on March 25, 2009 at 2:44 PM

You must have pretty boring, pathetic life.

Blueneck on March 25, 2009 at 2:42 PM

You must be getting tired of holding those signs, having someone drive by every morning and remind you of what a pathetic existence you have.

AubieJon on March 25, 2009 at 2:48 PM

How ’bout FedEx vs Boeing vs Gub’mintover unionization?

FedEx threatens to cancel Boeing jet orders: report

FedEx Corp is threatening to cancel the purchase of billions of dollars worth of new Boeing Co cargo planes if Congress passes a law that would make it easier for unions to organize at the package-delivery company, the Wall Street Journal said.

FedEx may cancel plans to buy as many as 30 new Boeing planes should Congress pass a bill that would remove truck drivers, couriers and other employees at FedEx’s Express unit from the jurisdiction of the federal Railway Labor Act of 1926, the paper cited the company spokesman as saying.

tree hugging sister on March 25, 2009 at 2:49 PM

I don’t know if the rules have changed but when I worked for a trucking company that considered going union in the late seventies, the employer was not allowed to talk about the vote but the union was allowed to have pep rallies at the business. Card Check must go down.

Cindy Munford on March 25, 2009 at 2:49 PM

I thought Card Check was safely dead…no?

pseudonominus on March 25, 2009 at 2:17 PM

Nothing is really dead until you throw 6 ft. of dirt on it

thomasaur on March 25, 2009 at 2:50 PM

My tiny (5’0″ 105 lb) wife works in a non-union place. What if some thugs approached her & demanded that she vote to unionize? I shudder to think of the implications of this evil Dem scheme.

jgapinoy on March 25, 2009 at 2:51 PM

Unions have long since become what they were formed to prevent.

warbaby on March 25, 2009 at 2:51 PM

These liberal morons emboldened by the election of Presidente Pinnochio and the Dem Congress Critters and Senate Scum are going to show up at the wrong door and find a Freedom Loving American not afraid to exercise their second amendment rights if the trespassers don’t vacate the property.

Can’t happen soon or often enough.

dhunter on March 25, 2009 at 2:58 PM

Unions have long since become what they were formed to prevent.

warbaby on March 25, 2009 at 2:51 PM

+100

Knucklehead on March 25, 2009 at 2:59 PM

My tiny (5′0″ 105 lb) wife works in a non-union place. What if some thugs approached her & demanded that she vote to unionize? I shudder to think of the implications of this evil Dem scheme.

jgapinoy on March 25, 2009 at 2:51 PM

CCW

pseudonominus on March 25, 2009 at 3:05 PM

You must have pretty boring, pathetic life.

Blueneck on March 25, 2009 at 2:42 PM

I’m a cubical office dweller…you know, the guy who actually keep the country and economy going, unlike the parasitical cancer that unions are.

You must be getting tired of holding those signs, having someone drive by every morning and remind you of what a pathetic existence you have.

What are you talking about, you know they’re getting paid for it. They’re freaking union…they get paid to sit on their lazy asses and complain about how tough their jobs are.

Rogue on March 25, 2009 at 3:46 PM

Besides, Comrade Blueneck…any chance I have to express my feelings toward those who are responsible for the sorry state of American manufacturing, it’s a good day.

Rogue on March 25, 2009 at 3:48 PM

I thought Card Check was safely dead…no?

pseudonominus on March 25, 2009 at 2:17 PM

This year. But like all bad ideas, it’ll be back.

AZCoyote on March 25, 2009 at 3:50 PM

What are you talking about, you know they’re getting paid for it. They’re freaking union…they get paid to sit on their lazy asses and complain about how tough their jobs are.

Rogue on March 25, 2009 at 3:46 PM
——-
They may not even be actual carpenters or electricians or plumbers or ironworkers… I don’t have a cite, but didn’t one conservative blog or another catch a case of a union hiring people to carry strike signs?

Mew

acat on March 25, 2009 at 4:17 PM

There’s a couple of hippy looking union protestors out in front of it every day with a big “SHAME ON…” sign.

Rogue on March 25, 2009 at 2:37 PM

My sister in law who teaches down in Chinatown dared to cross a UTLA line. The neighborhood is working class, and if the kids don’t come to school, they have no parents at home to take care of them. My sister in law grew up in the neighborhood, unlike most of her peers, and knew the demographics, so she opened her classroom anyway.

For about a year, some union teachers there did everything they could, even to the point of endangering her students. The most common thing is during assembly periods — there’s a strict order in which the classes leave the playground after the Pledge, and the union people would do things like deliberately cutting her class in half by waiting until half had passed and then running their students through. She and some other teachers held a bake sale to buy some 32 gallon trash cans and fill them with earthquake supplies, and the union people stole the money and bought a copier for the union with it. She had to share an aide with a union teacher, and the other teacher would keep the aide and not release her to go do the work my sister in law needed done. It was a hellish year for her, but she put up with it for the sake of her kids.

unclesmrgol on March 25, 2009 at 4:31 PM

Coercion…unions business…nope, those two words don’t seem to repel each other….

ladyingray on March 25, 2009 at 2:16 PM

FIFY

sethstorm on March 26, 2009 at 6:22 AM

I’m a cubical office dweller…you know, the guy who actually keep the country and economy going, unlike the parasitical cancer that unions are.

Rogue on March 25, 2009 at 3:46 PM

Dwelling in a cubicle doesn’t exclude unionization.

sethstorm on March 26, 2009 at 6:26 AM

Those of us living in socialized Michigan are familiar with the unions and their tactics. This is not new. I see these thugs at non-union jobsites all the time intimidating non-union workers. (My brother-in-law had to take one of them on physically to get into his truck about 6 years ago). The auto makers should file bankruptcy, kill thier union contracts and send a giant nail into the union coffin. Card check is ultimately the last resort to saving this dying breed of thugs. Don’t let it happen. If they succeed, the union mentality that has destroyed my once great state will destroy yours too. Unions=legalized mafia! (Fear and intimidation to extort what you want from others that have earned what you haven’t!)

MichiganMatt on March 26, 2009 at 10:13 AM