Pledge Cards = Card Check, I DON'T THINK SO!

Well this something that I do know a lot about. (I think I am going to upset a lot of my friends with this one.) At the tender age of 21, I was exposed to work conditions and a manager at a southern TV station in Petersburg, Virginia that was so horrible that I decided that we needed a union. This would be quite a feat in a "Right-to-work-state". (I was a Conservative/Republican, but, hey, even we can belong to unions.) I made all the necessary contacts, met "in-secret" with a Union Organizer (a man that I still respect and hold in high regard to this day) and I was told how we would go about getting my fellow workers to sign something called a "Pledge Card". This card carried a signature of the employee, saying that he was requesting a "Secret Ballot election" in which all employees could cast a "secret ballot" to either vote "yes" for Union Representation on "no" against "Union Representation". We had to get two-thirds of the eligible employees to sign a "Pledge Card" in order to get the NLRB to sanction an election that was a "simple majority rules" vote. Meaning if 60 employees were eligible to vote in this election, then we would need only 31 "yes" votes in this "Secret Ballot" to be able to be represented by this union.
Now, please keep in mind, the entire time our goal was to get a simple two-thirds of the eligible employees to sign these "Pledge Cards"; these cards went directly to the NLRB and were NEVER shown to management of the TV station I was employed at. The important thing here is that this "Pledge Card" was NOT a commitment to vote in favor of the union, but only an assertion that the undersigned person wanted a chance to have a "Secret Ballot" election to let the "Majority" decide if a Union Representation was necessary. Let me repeat that, this "Pledge Card" was NOT a commitment to vote in favor of the union, but only an assertion that the undersigned person wanted a chance to have a "Secret Ballot" election to let the "Majority" decide if a Union Representation was necessary. We were told to STRESS this was just a request for a "Secret Ballot" election. Again it was a request to the NLRB to sanction a "SECRET BALLOT" election. I remember being told that this "SECRET BALLOT" was the most important thing we could have, because it gave a regular employee a chance to "have a say" in his future with his employer, without the employer knowing who voted "for" or "against" the union. And I remember in subsequent years as my involvement in the "Organized Labor Movement" grew, being told to "STRESS" that signing this "PLEDGE CARD" was an "important right"because it 'gave an employee a chance to have a "Secret Ballot" election. And years later, when I was sent to an AFL-CIO sponsored "Union Organizing Class", again, this "PLEDGE CARD" was held up and shown as our goal, to get two-thirds of these signed so that the NLRB would sanction a "Secret Ballot' election.
This takes us to today. Now the AFL-CIO and all of the Union leaders around the country are calling for a "Card Check" system, one that would do-away with the "Secret Ballot" election. My question is, if one delves into the history of "Organized Labor", one will see that men and women fought in the streets for the right to this "Secret Ballot" election. This was the one thing that all union members knew; "This union is here because we voted in a "Secret Ballot" and the majority won!!!" Now all of a sudden, this Democratic right to a "Secret Ballot" is going to go away? What? Wait! Where is the Democratic process in that? Where is the "Majority rules"? The so- long- and- hard- fought- for "Secret Ballot" will go away and be replaced by a simple "signing of a card"? What happened to the promised "Private and Secret Ballot", which was always organized labor's hook to get the average Joe to sign a "Pledge Card".
My union membership extended over thirty years. I went from a non-represented Organizer, to a member, to an Alternate Steward, to a Steward, to a Chief Steward to a Local Vice President. I KNOW what I am talking about. . .I was in the organizing trenches; I spoke to employees and convinced them to sign these "Pledge Cards". I spoke to employees and convinced them to vote "Yes" for "Union Representation" in a "Secret Ballot" election. Now the Federal Government wants to take away another right; the "Secret Ballot" election will go away and it will be replaced by a simple signature on a card that was originally really intended to allow these employees to have their say through a "SECRET BALLOT ELECTION". Another change brought to you by the libs, the Dems, the Progressives and obama!! Democracy is slowly being chipped away and will soon be replaced by socialism.