Karen Ackerman, the national political director for the AFL-CIO, recently had this nonsense to say about the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act:

"Of course, employers are not happy about it," Ackerman said of the legislation. "Of course, employers are going to call it undemocratic.

"But, in fact, if people want to be members of the Republican Party, they don’t have to have a secret-ballot election. If folks want to join a church or be a member of a Boys Club, they don’t have to have a secret election," she said.

The Employee Free Choice Act, she said, is "a way to even out the system."

What she doesn’t want to acknowledge is that my political party or church does not have special coervice powers granted by the government to compel other people to accept its "representation" and even to join or pay dues.

Even secret ballot elections for union certification are far from fair. That’s because if a union is voted in, it is awarded the power to be the "exclusive representative" of all members of the bargaining unit — even those workers who do not want to join (or be "represented by") the union brass.

Opponents of Card Check Instant Organizing shouldn’t only rely on appeals to "democracy" in the debate against union officials and union-backed politicians. A democratic election may seem a better alternative to union goons misleading or coercing workers into signing authorization cards — but one should not overlook the link between card check and the greater evil of monopoly bargaining.

If Ackerman were to be honest, she would look at the flip side of her own example — I may be free to donate money to the Republican party, but she is also free NOT to do so. A worker should be free to join or pay dues to a union, but a worker should also be free NOT to support a union — or to be "represented" by a union.

As long as there is monopoly bargaining — whether it is imposed through an NLRB-supervised election or the even more abusive card check process — there can be no real employee free choice.