Update: EFCA just passed the House!

Look over to the right at the corporate-financed "Save the Secret Ballot" attacking the Employee Free Choice Act. Now you can read all the horror stories about how employers have abused workers during union elections to understand why alternative "card check" systems are being promoted in this bill.

But even the principle behind the argument is a fraud. The obvious point is that companies don't allow secret ballots for electing managers. But the real fraud is that union workers have plenty of secret ballots under the Employee Free Choice Act:

• They elect union leaders by secret ballot;
• They vote on whether to authorize strike or other work actions by secret ballot;
• They approve union contracts by secret ballot

But without a union in the first place, most workers never see any ballot at all on their work conditions:

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Now, I'm absolutely down with Jeff in seeing the real enemy as the Party of Davos-- and was in the streets of DC post-Seattle with the global justice movement. And contra Greg, I think we have to confront these global realities in order to deal with issues closer to home. I spend most of my time at the localistic level of state politics, but issues like Iraq and global trade play out even at that level. The Montana Senate just yesterday passed a resolution condemning Fast Track trade authority as an economic threat.

So count me as squarely on Jeff's side of the debate but let me challenge the idea that reforming NAFTA with a stronger cross-national alliance with Mexico is the place to start. Tens years ago, I would have agreed (and I did back then in this piece). But given the explosive reality of China's role in the US economy, it's too little, too late.

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