For the life of me, I've never been able to figure out how any conservative could be anti-union.

Understanding the flaws of human nature, our nation's founders devised a brilliant system of checks and balances for our government. Human nature being consistent from the Senate floor to the shop floor, why wouldn't similar checks and balances be needed in the business world?

That said, maybe some people are anti-union because they've actually seen modern unions in action. I have, and with certain parting events still fresh in my mind, I can say the experience left me both proud and perturbed.

We're a long way from the days when Pittsburgh's robber barons encouraged local militiamen to fire on striking -- and starving -- railroad workers, though to hear some talk, we're still waging the Great Railroad Strike of 1877.

Last week union organizers professed themselves astonished that 300 people, instead of the "maybe 50" expected, turned out to march up the Boulevard of the Allies. They were headed for Sen. Arlen Specter's office, to encourage the Pennsylvania Republican to change his mind and support the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act."

The turnout is not so astonishing when you consider that what's at stake is a potentially vast expansion of the labor movement's reach. But it is astonishing when you consider that one of the bill's key provisions is grossly undemocratic.

Mr. Specter's reason for voting to stymie (temporarily) this bill's progress -- through a Democrat-controlled Congress intent on rewarding the Democratic Party's biggest voting bloc -- is "the elimination of the secret ballot," he said, "the cornerstone of how contests are decided in a democratic society."

Exactly right, and those who pretend otherwise are either disingenuous or perhaps misguided by the ghosts of battles won long ago.

The stalled bill's "card check" provision would have allowed employees to decide whether to dispense with a secret-ballot election. They could sign cards avowing that they want union representation, and those cards would themselves be the ballots, resulting in a union shop's quick establishment.

The bill's supporters argue that between card-signing and an election date, employers can harass and intimidate pro-union workers. That's almost funny, because during this time, pro-union employees also get to harass and intimidate their colleagues.

Union organizers have been known to use strong-arm tactics from the get-go -- reportedly making high-pressure in-home visits to obtain colleagues' signatures on those pro-union cards in the first place. So much for "free choice."

With both labor and management known to proselytize and threaten, the secret ballot is the only way to ensure that an employee is voting according to his or her own conscience. It is the individual's check on either group's power. It is a right that no group should have the power to remove.

And seen in action, group power is troubling. One of my last meetings before leaving the Post-Gazette (and going freelance) was a required seminar on sexual harassment. Members of the paper's various unions chose from a variety of available session times; I was one of few females at an evening session that covered legal definitions and hypothetical scenarios illustrating inappropriate conduct.

A lot of us spent a lot of time staring at the floor -- not because the material was embarrassing, but because a couple of guys at the back of the room decided to taunt the (female) seminar leader and mock the entire procedure. No one from their shop said anything to them, not a word of rebuke; in fact, a fellow Newspaper Guild member observed that their peers had put them up to it. Such is the power of comradeship.

I remain proud of the union to which I belonged. I have no doubt that it's had a positive impact on the quality of the Post-Gazette's products -- and on the salaries and benefits its members enjoy. To protect quality and standards of living in an industry that's in crisis, our Guild works with management in a way I consider noble and far-sighted.

Unreasonable, dishonest and cowardly people can be found in management and labor alike. Any democratic movement worthy of its name should seek to protect the individual from their power.

The "Employee Free Choice Act" will surface again -- with the "card check" portion revised or eliminated. But once it survives a Republican filibuster attempt and moves on through the Senate, the utterly undemocratic card check provision can be restored and made the law of the land.

Mr. Specter should be encouraged to continue protecting the rights of the employee -- something unions used to stand for.