Eye On Boise

Anti-union bill clears committee on party-line vote, despite legal problems

Posted by Betsy

Jan. 31, 2011 8:20 a.m. • 5 comments

After an hour of legal arguments about complicated legal problems with the bill, the Senate State Affairs Committee has voted 7-2, along party lines, to approve SB 1007, legislation targeting labor unions by prohibiting them from subsidizing wages to aid contractors in winning bids. “The reason we brought this bill is to level the playing field,” declared Sen. Monty Pearce, R-New Plymouth, who is co-sponsoring the bill with Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, and nine other GOP lawmakers. “This bill is about freedom, it's about freedom to protect our workers and our workforce. This simply adds to and enables us to enforce Right to Work.”

Idaho already is a Right to Work state, in which union membership can't be a condition for hiring. Sen. Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, said only 7 or 8 percent of Idaho's workers now are union members. “They have that choice,” she said. “Whether we agree or not with labor unions and what they do with wages, they've chosen to do that, and they need to be protected too. … I think this bill doesn't allow for the level playing field that everybody keeps talking about.”

Sen. Edgar Malepeai, D-Pocatello, said he'd just sat through “an hour of listening to foreign language” about all the legal problems with the bill, and the likelihood of litigation. “In the best interest of looking out for the state, I don't have a comfort … right now in proceeding with a piece of legislation that has the likelihood of going to court,” he said. He moved to hold the bill in committee, but that motion failed on a 2-7 vote; the original motion from Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian, to send the bill to the full Senate with a “do-pass” recommendation then passed on a 7-2 party-line vote. A companion bill with the same list of sponsors and co-sponsors, SB 1006, banning “project labor agreements” in public works contracts, already has cleared the committee and is up for a vote in the full Senate as soon as today.

Five comments on this post so far. Add yours!

sagebrush on January 31 at 9:39 a.m.
Level the playing field? By destroying what’s left of unions in Idaho? Sounds like a great thing to do to working people in a recession.
ericn1300 on January 31 at 9:45 a.m.
Wow, another jobs bill for taxpayer paid attorneys.
kamm on January 31 at 10:38 a.m.
“…7 or 8% of Idaho workers are now union members… …it’s about freedom, freedom to protect our workers and our workforce.”

Protect them against who? what? protect 92% of the workforce from 8% of the work force?
What am I missing here?
Is this Legislature going to nullify the DOL Minimum Wages since the State supports the same minimum wage.
I’m sure there are a lot of Federal rulings that annoy the legislatures. This is way too much!
Sisyphus on January 31 at 11:16 a.m.
By “level the playing field”, they mean allowing the employer to use its economic superiority to dictate employment terms, otherwise known as the golden rule. Those with the gold makes the rules.
mtngardener on January 31 at 12:20 p.m.
This legislative majority (and its extremeist supporters) allows no dissent. Ideological purity is all. Why else worry about the 7 or 8 % or the workers who are union members. What’s next.? Can you say “freedom of religion”? If your beliefs don’t fit a narrow definition watch out. The only interesting thing about this might be watching to see how the fundamentalists and LDS (who share some beliefs about behaviour) will come to terms with each other. Or not? Woe to the rest of us.