Introduction

PROPOSITION 113, RIGHT TO VOTE FOR SECRET BALLOT REGARDING EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION

MODERATOR RICH DUBEK: Up next is the explanation on Prop 113.

SECRETARY OF STATE KEN BENNETT: Proposition 113, a yes vote shall have the effect of guaranteeing the right under state law, of individuals to vote by secret ballot in elections, designations or authorizations for employee representation, including unions and employee organizations.

A no vote shall have the effect of maintaining current law regarding secrecy in voting.

MODERATOR RICH DUBEK: Thank you, very much. And on the pro side of 113 is Lucy Morrow Caldwell, Campaign Coordinator for Save Our Secret Ballot Arizona.

MS. LUCY MORROW CALDWELL : Thank you. President Obama and Democrats are right now working to fundamentally change the way that shops get unionized. The goal of Save Our Secret Ballot is to ensure that their plan never takes effect in Arizona.

Currently, when Unions wants to organize a business, they have to collect signatures from 30 percent of employees. Then there's a campaign where both the Union and the company get to make their case. Then there's a vote. Workers get to vote on whether or not they want to unionize, and their ballots are secret. A pretty good system.

But Union bosses want to take away workers rights to secret ballots. Instead, they want to be able to go directly to workers homes, maybe at night or on weekends, and use tactics to persuade them to sign Union cards.

They're proposing a law where one-half of employee's sign Union cards, the company is immediately unionized. No campaign, no election, certainly no secret ballot.

These new rules would apply to businesses with as few as ten employees. If you think economic recovery is slow now, imagine how slow it would be if the Unions have their way.

A businessman with nine employees and thinking of hiring his tenth, would have weigh the upside of growing a business against the downside of potentially having his business unionized overnight.

Why do Union bosses want this? Membership has waned in recent years, but if this policy passes, they predict their Union membership will triple, which will drastically increase their funding for political activism.

I would bet my Opponent is going to tell you that Prop 113 is sharply slanted toward allowing employer intimidation. But if it's intimidation you fear, why would not want a secret ballot? Employee intimidation is wrong. It's wrong when it comes from the employee's boss and from the Union boss.

But with the secret ballot, you the worker are the boss. That's probably why time after time this issue polls highest among Union households. No one is more aware of the threat of Union intimidation than Union members. They don't want to take away the secret ballot. It's the privileged Union bosses who do.

All 113 does is make sure that workers have a secret ballot where no intimidation can take place. When you vote by secret ballot, you can't be intimidated. Let's protect that.

MODERATOR RICH DUBEK: Thank you, very much. Opposed to 113 is Mike Valder, President of the Arizona Advocacy Network.

MR. MIKE VALDER: Good evening. The Arizona Advocacy Network is a good government organization, and she's right. We do support public funding for political campaigns. It's an effort to keep the big money, special interest, from totally governing everything.

That's what Prop 113 is about. It's one more effort by the big money special interest to weasel itself into the fabric and structure of state law, so that the middle class, which isn't doing so well these days, just won't have a chance to do any better.

That's what labor unions are about. It offers middle class people a chance to advance. And the shrinking of the American middle class is directly linked to the decline in Union membership. As Union membership has plummeted, corporations have dramatically increased compensation for top executives, while middle management and working people's wages have stagnated or declined.

Workers deserve the right to choose, to organize a Union through a simple process without the long delays that are exploited by employers to try to scare employees against voting for the Union.

Worker organizers assert that the secret ballot process for forming Unions, has become entirely corrupted by business interests, who have succeeded in watering down regulations and neutering the Labor Relations Board.

You know, 89 percent of companies' force employees who are trying to unionize, to attend multiple mandatory closed-door meetings against the Union . Folks, you have no idea of the pressures and manipulations that are employed by employers to try to resist and defeat any efforts to form Unions.

And yet, Union membership is what has really made America strong with a strong middle class. We urge you not to support this misnamed and misleading proposition.

MODERATOR RICH DUBEK: Thank you, very much.