Union Boss: Since When Is A Secret Ballot Part Of A Democracy?

Yes, he did actually say it.

Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa today praised House and Senate sponsors of the Employee Free Choice Act.
The bill would give workers the choice of forming a union through majority sign-up or a National Labor Relations Board election. It would make it easier for workers to form a union.
“In these dire economic times, I can’t think of a better way to restore stability to middle-class families than to strengthen unions,” Hoffa said. “History shows that the economy does well when unions are strong.”
Hoffa blasted the hostile, multimillion-dollar campaign to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act.
“This business about the Employee Free Choice Act taking away the secret ballot is nonsense spread by front groups for corporate fat cats who don’t want to give up their $16,000 wastebaskets,” Hoffa said.
“Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy?” Hoffa said.

I think that democracy can exist without a secret ballot. Hoffa goes on to use New England-style town hall meetings as an example of democracy in action without the secret ballot, and that’s probably valid. But he then, absurdly, invokes the Soviet Union as an example of voting with secret ballots that wasn’t in a democracy. While the subjects under Soviet rule did get to vote for their local soviets (or local representation) the Communist party and the, ahem, labor unions controlled who did and did not run. Most of the elections were unopposed elections with the party/union candidate getting 99% of the vote.
Because what is more important to democracy than the secret ballot is an environment free from intimidation. People can vote on local issues in town hall meetings without secret ballots and that can work as democracy as long as their isn’t intimidation involved. People can also vote in a secret ballot, but if some candidates are too afraid of what will happen to them if they run against another candidate or if voters are afraid of speaking out publicy then there is no democracy and the secret ballot is meaningless.
Thus, the true measure of democracy is how freely the people casting their votes can do so without fear.
Now, not all situations can be made free of episodes of intimidation, and labor organizing which has a violent past. Both unions and management have been prone, in the past, to try to get their way through violence or economic pressure. Thus the secret ballot is important to the process to protect workers from both sides.