>Why don't you ask the people working the
>union democracy movement what they think of your idea that we can dispense
>with free elections and secret ballots?
Indeed this is a question that those who work for union democracy must ask ourselves; I don't say that we should abolish free elections & secret ballots, for they might be useful depending on occasions, but I think that we have to reject the _mystique_ associated with "free elections" and "secret ballots." "Free elections" & "secret ballots" don't necessarily make things better for the working class & sometimes they make things worse (see examples in my original post).
>I could explain at great length why
>the US laboe law regime is so union-unfriendly, and none of itr has to do
>with the idea that workers choose their own representatives through
>elections.
My original post said much more about balloting in general than about a particular question of choosing representatives. (See, for instance, references to the UK labor "reforms." The fundamental problem is the mystique of "individual choice.") Anyhow, by the time an election is held, candidates for leaders are _already_ chosen, and what matters for democracy most seems to me to be the quality of grassroots organizing through which candidates for leadership emerge. What makes for the lack of democracy is the absence of self-organization of the masses, not the absence of elections & secret ballots. BTW, here's an interesting post on voting in Peru.
At 10:48 AM -0700 5/29/00, Juan R. Fajardo wrote:
>Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 10:48:22 -0700
>From: "Juan R. Fajardo" <fajardos at ix.netcom.com>
>X-Accept-Language: en
>To: marxism at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Blank and null votes
>Sender: owner-marxism at lists.panix.com
>Reply-To: marxism at lists.panix.com
>
>Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky wrote:
>
> > Any comments on the high turnover of blank ballots? In Argentina they
> > have a very precise meaning, since voting is compulsory (even though
> > the legislation is enforced with increasing "smoothness", or not
> > enforced at all).
>
>In Peru null and blank ballots also have a precise meaning. They imply
>rejection not only of the candidates but of the elections themselves,
>and even of the system itself.
>
>This was used rather pointedly by Sendero Luminoso after the 1985
>elections to claim that Alan Garcia was not legally entitled to be
>president because the void and blank ballots cast denied him a
>plurality, much less a majority, of the total votes cast. (He failed to
>win a majority, so there was to be a run-off election between him and
>the Izquierda Unida candidate, Lima mayor Alfonso Barrantes, but
>Barrantes withdrew saying that it was clear that Alan would win.)
>
>Voting is compulsory for all adults outside the jails and the military.
>The law is not enforced en el momento, but later. The fact of voting is
>recorded in the Libreta Electoral, which serves as the national ID
>card. The LE must be presented when conducting business with government
>agencies, when stopped by police, when entering or leaving the country,
>etc. It is then that the voting law is enforced through fines levied on
>nonvoters, which must be cleared up before services are rendered. Of
>course, it is common to pay bribes one can get off on the cheap, but
>still without the crucial stamp in one's LE.
>
>- Juan
Yoshie