Throughout the Cold War, the American labor movement was a steadfast supporter of democracy. Recognizing the evil of the Soviet system, which, ironically for a self-proclaimed workers’ paradise banned free labor unions, American labor worked with other American and global civic institutions in bringing down communism.

The AFL-CIO purged communist infiltrators from its ranks and under the visionary leadership of President Lane Kirkland, funneled millions of dollars to the Solidarity movement in Poland. Indeed, Fred Siegel once declared Kirkland “an architect of America’s victory in the Cold War.”

So it’s troubling to see that labor has taken a decisive turn in an anti-democratic direction this week, with support for, and passage yesterday in the U.S. House of Representatives of the deceivingly named Employee Free Choice Act. With any luck, the White House will make good on its promise to veto the bill if it somehow also makes it through the Senate.

The EFCA would allow workers in the private sector to form a union once a bare majority signs cards in favor of doing so, a process called “card check neutrality.” The current process — a secret ballot election monitored by the National Labor Relations Board — would be scuttled. Card check, despite its euphemism, is the sort of process you might have found in the Eastern bloc, not a democratic country.

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Unions, as is to be expected and appreciated, like any organization, act according to their own interests. Yet in the case of this particular bill, it appears that labor is ignoring the very working people whom they purport to represent.

A poll conducted in 2004 by the nonpartisan Zogby International found that 71 percent of union members believe the secret ballot process is fair, while only 13 percent believe it to be unfair. And 78 percent of union members support keeping the secret ballot in place. Card-check also flies in the face of American democracy and the vast majority of Americans realize it: A full 89 percent of them support the secret ballot for union elections.

Unions have trotted out statistics that, once faced with a union election, 80 percent of companies hire management-consulting firms to help them dissuade workers from unionizing, and that 90 percent hold compulsory, one-on-one meetings where managers tell workers not to vote for a union.

As aggressive as these tactics may be, they hardly constitute the “harassment” that workers experience at the hands of union organizers. Moreover, management — which hires individuals at its pleasure — has just as much of a right to make its views about unionization known to its workforce as does labor.

The “neutrality” component of the bill, which compels management essentially to keep its mouths shut on reasons why a union may have a negative effect on the business and its workers, completely silences one side in what should be a vigorous debate.

Union leaders allege that management intimidates workers in secret-ballot elections. But in 2005, more than 92 percent of the allegations of misconduct raised by unions were either withdrawn or dismissed and the NLRB found employer abuse in less than 1 of every 200 secret ballot elections held.

It is nonetheless true, however, that companies sometimes harass workers and resort to unseemly means (the worst: firing union organizers prior to an election) to make it more difficult for workers to form unions.

Positive aspects of EFCA address those concerns and would stiffen penalties against companies that take such measures. But EFCA throws the baby out with the bathwater by eliminating secret ballot elections entirely. Surely, the House and Senate can work on a compromise bill that will take unions’ valid interests into account while maintaining the vital necessity of secret ballots.

Unions have a vital role to play in our society. But just as important is the democratic process by which workers go about forming them; a process that Lane Kirkland knew did not exist in the Soviet Union. So there’s one question we ought to ask union leaders this week: what do you have against the secret ballot?

James Kirchick is assistant to the editor in chief of The New Republic. His Examiner column appears on alternate Fridays.