Published: Sunday February 1, 2009
Intensifying the polarized rhetoric surrounding the Employee Free Choice Act, a top Forbes magazine editor called the bill "anti-free choice" and "pro-slavery" on Fox News Saturday.Appearing on Forbes on Fox, Forbes national editor Mike Ozanian also said the bill "would be bad for the economy, bad for jobs, and bad for consumers. It would essentially allow unions to bully people into joining them."
In fact, as the House Committee on Education and Labor says on its website, the Employee Free Choice Act would make the choice between the National Labor Relations Board's secret ballot election process and a card sign-up process "a majority choice of the employees, not the employer."
During the Forbes on Fox discussion, Forbes.com contributor John Rutledge said, "Banning secret ballots, that is a terrible idea. This is a Gestapo tactic."
On-screen text during the segment featured the sentences "Union Membership Soaring; Why Ban Secret Votes at Work?" and "Unions Push to Ban Secret Votes at Work as Membership Soars."
But the bill would not "ban" secret-ballot elections. Rather, it would in part allow workers to decide whether to hold a secret ballot election or a majority sign-up process when dealing with the question of unionization, Media Matters said Saturday.
U.S. union membership actually increased in 2008, but Employee Free Choice act supporters say the bill is needed to allow workers to freely unionize. U.S. business leaders remain staunchly opposed to the measure.
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