A reminder of the dangers of the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, from Jonah Goldberg:

There is a bloody spin war over whether card check abolishes the secret ballot or not. Pro-card-check forces insist that it doesn’t. Unfortunately, these voices include many mainstream reporters who consistently use the language preferred by Big Labor. They parrot the labor line that if 30 percent of workers sign a card asking for an election, they can have one.

But this ignores the unions’ crimp tactics. For starters, the cards are written in ways that make “predatory lending” mortgages seem like paragons of full disclosure.

The National Right to Work website shows an example of such a card. In big, bold letters on top, it says “Request for Employees Representation Election.” But after you fill out the relevant info, there’s the small print, authorizing the Teamsters to “represent me in all negotiations of wages, hours and working conditions.”

In other words, in many cases, workers who think they’re just voting for an election are in fact voting for unionization. The unions make it as difficult as possible to do the former without also doing the latter.

All we can do is hope that a few conservative Democrats prevent the passage of this nonsense. Otherwise, small businesses around the country will be shutting down, and power hungry Teamster bosses will join with the mob to remake employee organization in this country to follow the example of France. Which is just what our economy needs right now.