South Carolina Statehouse Blog

Across the nation, many states are looking into adopting constitutional amendments that would make it a constitutional right for secret ballot elections to be held in the work place. South Carolina is leading the country in this regard with H. 3305, a bill whose main sponsor and leading proponent is Representative Eric Bedingfield.

To start, H. 3305 is a constitutional amendment that, if adopted, would guarantee secret ballots when electing employee or union representation. Since this bill is a constitutional amendment, there are several extra requirements that have to be fulfilled before it can be successfully adopted. First off, this bill would have to receive a 2/3 vote in both the House and Senate chambers. After this, the amendment would be placed on the November 2010 ballot where a simple majority will finally place it into South Carolina’s constitution.

Representative Bedingfield feels that a constitutional amendment is needed over a regular law because an amendment helps to guarantee that the legislators are adding rights granted to the individuals by the federal constitution and not taking rights away. By going the constitutional route, the bill will thus be more defensible with respect to federal law.

Currently in South Carolina, work place elections are done by secret ballot. In 2008 alone, there were 62 secret ballot union elections in the state with 55% going union and 45% opposing unions. However, Bedingfield worries that if the Employee Free Choice Act is passed in Congress, workers in South Carolina might lose the right to private ballots if no extra steps are taken at the state level.

Without a guaranteed right to private ballot, Bedingfield fears that some work place elections could potentially take a turn for the worse.

“We don’t want an employer to show up at an employee’s house and say ‘Check this card or there are three people outside to make you understand why you should have checked it,’” Bedingfield explained.

However, if South Carolina has adopted this constitutional amendment granting employees the right to secret ballot elections, a federal law will be less able to affect it.

Representative Bedingfield explained that if a federal law, like the Employee Free Choice Act, isn’t meant to occupy the whole area of law dealing with work place elections and if it is deemed that South Carolina’s constitutional amendment is adding rights already granted by the federal Constitution, the state’s constitutional amendment should be able to stand up in court.

Even though he is certain that this constitutional amendment will be able to pass muster in court, Bedingfield feels that the amendment will eventually be challenged with or without the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. For example, the AFL-CIO voiced their opposition to this bill while in committee and will probably oppose its overall adoption as well.

Despite the potential opposition, Bedingfield hopes that this bill will be viewed as “a bipartisan piece of legislation that simply protects South Carolina workers.” Many individuals across the state and nation have already voiced their support for this bill in addition to the National Federation of Independent Business and several Chambers of Commerce.

Overall, Bedingfield feels that along with protecting employees, this bill can be used as a tool to help the state in the job creation and economic development realms as well.

“We feel that this is a tool in [the economic] realm too because as we are recruiting businesses in South Carolina, we can aptly look at them and say, ‘Your workers will be protected in South Carolina, you’ll be protected, your votes can be held by secret ballots and you won’t have to worry about coercion of your employees.’ ”