Corporate Campaigns: How Unions Take the Secret Ballot Away from American Workers

Washington, D.C., May 18, 2012 – Labor unions are resorting to imtimidation strategies called “corporate campaigns” to strong-arm companies into eliminating the secret ballot in union elections, a new report shows.  The Labor Watch report, “Corporate Campaigns: How Unions Take the Secret Ballot Away from American Workers,” is authored by CEI labor policy experts, Trey Kovacs and F. Vincent Vernuccio and published by the Capital Research Center.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka once called a corporate campaign the “death of a thousand cuts.” He was referring to a type of union organizing strategy that uses an arsenal of legal, political, and public relations attacks to wear down a company’s resistance to unionization. These tactics are intended to impose financial and legal liabilities on the target company, sully its reputation with its suppliers, shareholders and customers, and hurt its standing in the community by subjecting corporate officers to personal embarrassment.

The report goes on to highlight instances in which unions have pressured companies to sign “neutrality agreements” to take away the right of employees to a secret ballot, used an anti-immigration bill against foreign auto companies hiring American workers, and engaged in shocking activities such as putting plastic cockroaches on food and claiming hospital food was contaminated.

So, what can be done?

The authors recommend some specific actions to fight back.  Mainly, passing ballot measures to guarantee secret ballot union elections, passing a federal bill to do the same, and getting Congress to pass legislation allowing workers to re-elect their union every three years.

> View the CRC Labor Watch report, Corporate Campaigns: How Unions Take the Secret Ballot Away from American Workers