President would veto “card check”

That’s the good news in this article by Peter Suderman on NRO.

“Card check” is the darling of Big Labor, which is crying out to its favorite politicians to do something that will help to reverse its long decline among private sector workers. The idea is that rather than having a secret ballot election to determine whether a union has majority support from workers in a “bargaining unit,” union organizers would try to get workers to sign cards saying that they want the union and once a majority have signed, that would be enough to trigger official governmental recognition of the union as exclusive bargaining representative of all the workers and mandate that the employer negotiate “in good faith” with the union. As Suderman points out, this would allow all kinds of deception and abuse by union zealots.

A question he doesn’t ask is this: Why are the Democrats, many of whom constantly proclaim their devotion to maintaining individual privacy, uniformly behind this legislation? Having to openly declare that you are for or against the union sets people up for retaliation. (Yes, such retaliation is illegal, but it happens anyway.) If unionization is to be a collective decision (which it shouldn’t be), at least the people involved ought to be able to make up their minds and act in private.

I’m glad to know that President Bush will veto this hideous piece of special interest legislation if it gets to his desk, but it would be best if the Senate kills it.