Some contract employees at the University of Miami are hunger striking. It isn’t over wages and benefits – it is over the right of workers to vote by secret ballot on the question of union representation.

And guess what – it is the company, not the union, that wants to preserve the right of workers to express their opinion in a confidential manner.

At the University of Miami, maintenance workers for a private company just received a 25 percent pay raise and new health benefits, yet they continue an over-the-top hunger strike to pressure university President Donna Shalala to help them unionize.

Shalala did her part for workers' benefits by modifying the service contract with their employer, but the Service Employees International Union wants even more. It wants Shalala to force the company to yield on what type of union election the employees can hold.

While workers could vote to unionize by secret ballot, the union wants an easier route, called a "card check," that allows union recognition as soon as a majority of employees sign cards saying they favor a union.

The union argues that the company has intimidated workers leading up to an election. If that were true, it would seem workers would prefer a secret ballot rather than signing cards for all to see.

Card checks are a vehicle for union thuggery. Workers who refuse to publicly declare their willingness to submit to union tyranny are subject to unwelcome home visits and workplace intimidation by those who insist upon the right to represent their interests – for a hefty fee. Those who refuse to join are often threatened or worse, as the history of unions in this country has repeatedly shown.

Shalala should refuse to intervene in this dispute – and as for the hunger strike, when we should not take it seriously see senior SEIU officials placed on life-support in a Miami area ICU unit due to the effects of starvation and dehydration.