Well, this is different. Usually I see "progressive" websites correcting the spin emanating from the fact free zone.

...

So, of course, I have been reading over and over how MSM and Big Labor are misrepresenting the proposed Employee Free Choice law as removing the secret ballot from the process.

And, as it turns out, they are "technically" right. And at the same time, full of hooey.

I personally have mixed feelings about labor unions. Generally speaking, workers (and the U.S. in general) have been better off during the existence of unions.

But unions also have a long history of operating as crime syndicates. So, it's sort of a matter of equalizing the playing field by creating a second set of thieves who maintain a charade of advocacy for actual workers.

I worked in a factory with the father of a friend when I was young. My friend's father had worked 20 years on a union job, barely above minimum wage, for the "security" it represented. His fine union gave away paid vacation days and then stole the pension funds.

The whole point of "secret ballot" is to protect the worker from being pressured -- either by management or by thugs working for someone like Jimmy Hoffa -- into voting a particular way. So long as the vote is not 100% one way or the other, no one can be sure whether an individual worker voted one way or the other.

In a war of words between the WSJ and Think Progress, it appears to me that the new law proposes that workers can sign a "card" or petition to have a union. And, if 50% or more sign up, then a union is allowed. Or alternatively, there can be a "secret ballot."

Or, as the WSJ says, the "secret ballot" becomes a "dead letter" under the new law.

Well, yyyeahhh... Let's say 49% turn in the petition. Excuse me if I am misunderstanding (based on the Think Progress article) -- but isn't this a list that (a) the union can use to decide whose legs to break for not signing up for a union; and (b) management can use to decide whose legs to break for demanding a union?

Excuse me for obsolete thinking, but I thought the point of "secret ballot" was that your position on the subject actually be secret. Thereby preserving your health and welfare.

Crazy as it may seem, some employees do not actually want to work for a union -- especially when they realize which employees and union bosses will be their union overlords. Maybe they want a union, but just not THIS union.

Will THIS union make their lives better? Or just put them in a position of supporting two sets of psychopathic thieves instead of one?

The case can be made that at present there is not a "level playing field" and that management has the upper hand in preventing union formation. So, legislation that evens out the respective influence of the two sides is probably appropriate. If you ask me, this does not sound like the right way to do it.