Card-Check Backers Launch Campaign

Backers of legislation that would make it easier for unions to organize are launching a campaign to convince people that the Employee Free Choice Act does not technically eliminate secret-ballot elections.

Business groups and Republicans have strongly denounced the legislation, also known as card-check, because it would allow unions bypass holding a secret ballot election and form a union simply by having workers sign petition cards. Current law allows business leaders to insist on holding a secret ballot election and that right would disappear if the bill is signed into law.

Pro-labor action group American Rights at Work, which announced a $3 million TV ad campaign supporting the bill earlier this month, says that for the time being it will air ads attacking the notion that the bill eliminates secret ballot elections

“Greedy CEOs want to prevent workers from joining unions to level the playing field. Their new scheme to keep wages low? Spreading lies about the Employee Free Choice Act,” a narrator says in the new ad.

“The truth is the Employee Free Choice Act absolutely protects workers