Pro Act Suppresses Employee Right to Vote in Union Elections

This writer is from Georgia, where a recently passed state law has been accused by the media of discouraging voting by minorities. While this writer believes this claim is overstated at best, and false at worst, as evidenced by the fact that both Democrat activist Stacey Abrams and Republican former President Trump believe that recent elections in Georgia did not have sufficient safeguards. However, the subject of this article is not the Georgia state election laws, but the fact that massive media attention is being given to the claim that Georgia election laws discourage minority voting, while no one, and certainly not the press, seems to be interested in the massive discouragement of voting in union elections under the PRO Act. 

Traditionally, secret ballot union elections conducted by the NLRB are held on company property, which thereby allows easy access by voters. As a matter of fact, NLRB statistics show that about 98% of eligible employees vote in secret ballot elections held on company property. 

The PRO Act expressly prohibits employee voting on company property and instead says that voting must be conducted by mail, or in some cases at locations away from company property. It would be hard to imagine a greater restriction on voting. Let's take the example of the recent Amazon election. As stated by an Amazon spokeswoman, "We said from the beginning that we wanted all employees to vote and proposed many different options to try to make it easy . . . ." The [union] fought those at every turn and pushed for a mail-only election, which the NLRB's own data showed would reduce turnout. This mailbox - which only the USPS had access to - was a simple, secure, and completely optional way to make it easy for employees to vote, no more and no less." Even in the most publicized and important union election in a decade, only 55% of the eligible voters at Amazon voted. Had the election been held on company property, more than likely the normal 98% would have voted. And yet, the PRO Act prohibits voting on company property and basically advocates mail balloting, where only a little over half of the voters actually participate. 

To make the point directly, why is it that the media accuses the State of Georgia of restrictive voting while making no mention of arguably the greatest suppression of voting in history in terms of the PRO Act?

This is part of our May 2021 Newsletter.

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