Labor and employment attorneys squared off on the pending Employee Free Choice Act as part of Union Days events at the ILR School April 16. The debate focused on card-check unionism and the secret ballot, frequently touching on the nature of democracy itself.

Secret ballot elections are "fundamental to what our nation is all about," said Arch Stokes, an Atlanta attorney who argued against the proposed legislation during the debate in Ives Hall.

A secret ballot is what elected President Barack Obama, he said, and works well as the National Labor Relations Act-sanctioned system since 1935 through which workers have selected whether they want to unionize.

Nancy Schiffer, AFL-CIO associate general counsel, countered that the Employee Free Choice Act would give workers a better option in a system now dominated by management efforts to thwart fair and free elections.

The act, if passed by Congress, would allow union certification if a simple majority of workers signed cards authorizing union representation. The process is known as "card check."

Under the Employee Free Choice Act, workers could still opt to use the secret ballot election, Schiffer said. "Marking a ballot doesn't guarantee a free and fair vote" because the secret ballot system is fraught with employer intimidation, she said.

Workers are often forced to attend anti-union meetings sponsored by their companies, while unions are forbidden from campaigning in the workplace, she said.

Stokes said he has not seen fraud in the secret ballot system during his decades practicing labor and employment law. If the mission of the Employee Free Choice Act "is to increase union membership," it won't work, Stokes said. Union membership has been declining for decades and the act is not a "panacea."

Labor and other anti-discrimination movements were eclipsed by the civil rights movement and enlightened management practices, he claimed, making unions an option that workers are not interested in choosing.

Schiffer said the aim of the Employee Free Choice Act is not to promote unions, but to give workers a choice in how they decide whether they want a union.

Mary Catt is the ILR School's staff writer.