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Would someone from the union purposefully lie to you, coerce you, or even threaten you into signing a card? Would they forge signatures, just to turn in a bunch of names? According to complaints filed with the National Labor Relations Board, the answer is yes.
- “Harassing and intimidating employees at their homes to secure signatures on purposed union authorization cards . . .”
- “Misrepresenting to employees the meaning of union authorization cards . . .”
- “Threatening employees using racial intimidation . . .”
- “Preventing employees at their homes from going to work until they signed a union authorization card . . .”
- “Making employees sign a union authorization card as an entry fee into a union-sponsored organizing event . . .”
- “Asking whomever answered the door at the employees’ homes to sign a union authorization card on behalf of the employee . . .”
 Or how about this worker’s first-hand story:
“The union rep approached me . . . while I was working on the morning of 10/14/08 and told me that the union had gone through and I needed to sign the forms now in order to waive the initiation fee. I did so – and later found out that he said was untrue. I would not have signed at all if it were not for being deceived.”
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 An authorization card is a union organizer’s first step toward establishing a union as your exclusive bargaining unit.
And if they get enough cards signed, then it’s possible that everyone in that bargaining unit would be unionized without a secret ballot vote.
That’s why knowing what you’re signing and protecting your signature are so important.
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What’s on a “union authorization card?”
Here’s an example of one typically used by UNITE-HERE.
As you’ll see, it asks for:
- Personal information and home address – so that union organizers can stop by your house to get more information about the company, your coworkers – and maybe get your help to coerce other employee-partners to sign.
- “I hereby designate” – nowhere on the card does it request a secret-ballot election. Instead, a union card is worded so that anyone who signs it is automatically designating the union as his or her legal representative.
- Date – union cards are typically in effect for at least one year after signing.
- Signature – once you sign a card, it can be difficult – if not impossible – to get it back if you change you mind.
What an authorization card won’t show you is some of the fine print in the union’s constitution, to which you are bound upon signing the card. For example, here are some excerpts from the Teamsters’ Constitution of the rules and bylaws controlling every member:
- “Decisions and penalties imposed upon individual members . . . found guilty of charges may consist of reprimands, fines, suspensions, expulsions, revocations, denial to hold any office . . .” (page 150)
- “Per capita tax shall be paid on all delinquent dues and/or reinitiation fees collected". (page 82)
- “Dues shall be adjusted whenever an increase in hourly earnings . . .” (page 78)
- “ . . . the negotiating committee, with the approval of the General Executive Board, may order the resumption of such strike without a vote.” (page 99)
- “No member of a Local Union on strike shall be entitled to weekly benefits unless he reports to the proper officers of the Local Union . . .” (page 107)
- “Any member refusing to work for an employer considered fair, while on strike, shall be debarred from all benefits.” (page 107)
- “Any member who knowingly goes to work or remains in the employment of any person, firm, or corporation, whose employees are on strike or locked out . . . may be tried by the Executive Board of his Local Union.” (page 149)
- “. . . penalty for violating this Section shall be a fine equal to wages earned while working in violation of this Section.” (page 150)
- A member . . . charged by any other member of the Local Union with any offense constituting a violation of this Constitution shall, unless otherwise provided in this Constitution, be tried by the Local Union Executive Board.” (page 135)
- “Thereupon, the accused shall be required to stand trial at the time and place designated, which shall not be less than ten (10) days from the date the charges are served upon the accused.” (page 137)
- “A member of one Local Union shall have a right to file charges against a member of another Local Union.” (page 137)
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 The “Employee Free Choice Act” (EFCA) is a bill pending in Congress that would take away employees’ rights to a secret-ballot election when making union-membership decisions.
Some politicians and union members are claiming that EFCA doesn’t abolish the secret-ballot process, and that it allows for employees to choose whether they want a secret-ballot election or automatic recognition as a union member.
This is false – either the people saying this haven’t read the bill, or are purposefully misleading workers. The truth is that individual employees would only have a choice to sign a card or not.
If union organizers get signatures from a majority of workers, there is no election. The National Labor Relations Board would dictate that all applicable employees would be represented by the union, even those employees who don’t want to be unionized. Unfortunately, as former Democratic nominee for President Sen. George McGovern notes: “There are many documented cases where workers have been pressured, harassed, tricked and intimidated into signing cards that have led to mandatory payment of dues.”
What have the courts said over the years about the advantages of secret-ballot elections over card-check?
- “[A secret ballot election is the] most satisfactory – indeed, the preferred – method of ascertaining whether a union has majority support.”
Gissel Packing, 395 U.S. 395 U.S. 575, 602 (1969)
- “It is beyond dispute that secret election is a more accurate reflection of the employees’ true desires that a check of authorization cards collected at the behest of a union organizer.”
NLRB v. Flomatic Corp., 347 F.2d 74, 78 (2d Cir. 1965)
- “It would be difficult to imagine a more unreliable method of ascertaining the real wishes of employees than a ‘card check,’ unless it were an employer’s request for an open show of hands.”
NLRB v S.S. Logan Packing Co., 386 F.2d, 562, 565 (4th Cir., 1967)
- “Freedom of choice is a matter at the very center of our national labor relations policy, . . . and a secret election is the preferred method of gauging choice.” Avecor, Inc. v. NLRB, 931 F. 2d 924, 934 (D.C. Cir. 1991)
Additionally, EFCA also gives the federal government the ability to set employees’ wages and benefits without the approval of the employees.
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