George Miller on Secret Ballot In Union Recognition Elections: 2001

Miller Time in Mexico… by Ivan Osorio
OpenMarket, CEI blog, September 11, 2008

…looks very different than it does in the United States. And by Miller, I mean Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.).

In 2001, Rep. Miller and several of his colleagues wrote to a labor adjudication body in the Mexican state of Puebla urging that body to uphod the secret ballot as “absolutely necessary to ensure that workers are not intimidated into voting for a union they might not otherwise choose.”

Yesterday, the Mexican Supreme Court agreed, ruling that workers’ secret ballots in union organizing elections must be protected, reports Laborpains.org.

What does this have to do with the U.S.? Legally, nothing, but politically, plenty. The same protection that Miller so strongly defended for Mexican workers is the same one he is now trying to take away from American ones, through his sponsorship of the mandatory card-check organizing bill known as the Employee Free Choice Act.

Miller’s double-talk notwithstanding, he does deserve credit for one thing: He was right once. Now if only he could apply such wisdom inside his own country’s borders.

For more on card check, see here and here.