Arvin Kvasager: Secret Ballot Scare Stories Don't Add Up

For the past several weeks, we have seen a flood of anti-Employee Free Choice Act advertising from the North Dakota and U.S. chambers of commerce. The ads claim that the act will take away the secret ballot. But their facts are just plain wrong. Workers would be able to choose between the two current methods of forming a union — either with an election or by gathering a majority of signed authorization cards. The only difference is that today, the boss gets to make that choice for you. Of course, some of the very same corporations that are pouring millions into a campaign to attack the act are the same ones that are responsible for the current economic crisis.

So we shouldn’t be surprised that their talking points aren’t exactly resonating with working people. According to a recent Gallup poll, a solid majority of Americans are firmly in favor of legislation that’ll make it easier for workers to form a union if they want one. This is a critical time for our country and our state. Working people and their families are watching as our country faces the biggest economic crisis and the greatest inequality since the Great Depression. Think about where we are now. We are seeing devastating and permanent layoffs at the Case New Holland plant, temporary shutdowns at the two Bobcat plants, reduction of hours and layoffs around the state and a growing uncertainty about providing for our families. The working men and women who care for their families, work at our manufacturing plants, teach our kids and nurse us back to health understand that the economy is broken, and the middle class is in trouble. Between rising health care costs, tuition costs, mortgage payments and utility bills, these hard-working families are struggling to make ends meet If we’re going to have any chance of fixing this crisis, we can’t just focus on Wall Street. As President Barack Obama has said, “we will not be able to rebuild the middle class in America if working people do not have the freedom to form and choose a union.”

For 30 years, I was honored to advocate on behalf of working people as a business agent with the North Dakota Teamsters. I experienced on a daily basis the value of union membership. After all, union workers are much more likely to have good health care, pensions, living wages and the stability that comes with a secure job. In 1998, I was chairman of the Grand Forks County Board when the county’s dedicated, hardworking employees decided they wanted to form a union. The county commissioners voted unanimously to voluntarily recognize the union, once we determined that a majority of the employees wanted to form and join a union. Workers and managers at hundreds of successful companies have already benefited from the less-divisive majority sign-up process when workers expressed their desire to unionize. The same has been true for the public employees of Grand Forks County. The truth is that unions and businesses can and have worked together to set up employee training programs, reduce turnover, and improve product quality and services for many years. Recent studies from the Economic Policy Institute show that these cooperative relationships help local communities to prosper, which in turn helps stimulate demand for local businesses.

That is how America can succeed in the global economy. We won’t be the best by trying to be cheaper than China. We cannot continue racing to the bottom, because there isn’t much farther to go. As the late, great Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., used to say, “We all do better when we all do better.” We can all certainly do better when the Employee Free Choice Act becomes the law of the land. Kvasager, a former county commissioner, is a retired business agent for the Teamsters Union.