New York's card check law.

Update: The State of New York and New York City have employed an evolving process of determining a unions majority status among public sector bargaining units. A secret ballot election is not required. William A. Herbert, Deputy Chair and Counsel, New York State Public Employment Relations Board presents a detailed, excellent, historical account of the successes of recognition without an election in public sector bargaining. To his credit he does not argue this historical data unqualifiedly supports private sector card check recognition. What he does suggest is the 50 years of historical data is relevant to the debate.
More after the jump
Mr. Herbert acknowledges, but glosses over, the differences in public sector bargaining and private sector bargaining. He provides no public sector equivalent to a contentious private sector organizing dispute in which an employer and significant numbers of employees oppose unionization. Public employers in New York face the reality of significant union density in the general population, and this was even more so in the 1950's and 1960's when most of the changes away from requiring secret ballot elections were introduced. There is a significant argument, also not discussed, that public sector employers favored unionization rather than opposed it. That situation is analogous to private sector employers who consent to neutrality agreements and do not oppose organizing efforts. They are free to recognize a union based upon a card check majority under current law. What EFCA does is compel the unwilling employer to do so. For almost 70 years the National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] and the Courts have held that a secret ballot election is the preferred method of determining whether a labor organization represents an un-coerced majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for collective bargaining. No one has provided a compelling argument to permit another way of doing that when an employer objects.