Last week on our Labor Pains blog, we touched on how internal union officer elections are a poor substitute for the real democratic reforms of the Employee Rights Act:

Unions’ consistent disregard for the basic democratic protections guaranteed to union members by the Landrum-Griffin Act shows the need to expand employee rights. The Employee Rights Act (ERA) currently before Congress would require unions themselves to stand for reelection under a recertification procedure.

Rather than frequently rigged “democratic” officer elections run by unions, the ERA would require federally supervised referendums on whether the union was effective enough for the employees to keep around. The measure is widely supported, with  77% of union households favoring the measure.

Read the full post at Labor Pains.

In addition to frequently bending the rules to ensure bosses get reelected, Big Labor routinely denies secret-ballot organizing elections by implementing undemocratic card-check procedures. That is why it’s time to require unions to stand for reelection under a federally supervised recertification process. Under the current system, less than 10 percent of current union members actually voted for the union now representing them, which demonstrates how few unionized employees have had the chance to weigh in on their representation.

The ERA would set members free, and mandate that union bosses answer to them.