This week, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont (an ally of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO) and Representative Mark Pocan of Wisconsin (who represents the very liberal city of Madison) introduced the “Workplace Democracy Act.” It is “democratic” in a similar manner to the former German Democratic Republic or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea: Not at all. The bill would (like the similarly misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act”) effectively end the practice of secret-ballot elections supervised by federal authorities and replace it with public card check—the exact opposite of the ERA, which would prevent employers and unions from colluding to prevent a secret ballot vote. Needless to say, the AFL-CIO is ecstatic.

Read the whole thing over at Labor Pains.

In pushing reforms that strengthen union bosses rather than employees, the AFL-CIO and other labor unions find themselves squarely at odds with the American people — who support the Employee Rights Act’s common-sense reforms. For instance, eight out of ten Americans are in favor of secret-ballot elections in the workplace, including 80 percent of union and nonunion households, and a vast majority of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.