Bill won’t solve labor-relations problems

There are secret ballots, and then there are secret ballots. And then there is mail-in balloting, but that’s another issue.

The secret ballot in the United States theoretically concludes a transparent process in which all sides are heard – often ad nauseam – before the voters decide whom to support or what referendum to endorse. Unless hanging chads and the U.S. Supreme Court get involved, the result is a more or less straightforward reflection of voter opinion.

The process and outcome in countries too numerous to name is somewhat different. The balloting itself may be secret, but that is where the resemblance to a truly democratic process ends. Information is tightly controlled, as is access to the voting booth, and if the results fall short of one preordained by the powers that be, the votes are simply ignored.

Sadly, many union certification elections play out according to the second scenario. Even when union organizers get a majority of workers to sign cards seeking a vote on organizing – they need only 30 percent – the results frequently defy expectations for a labor victory.

Labor leaders say the process is stacked against organization efforts. Once an election has been authorized, employers can require worker attendance at anti-union meetings where they can allege jobs or even the continued operation of the factory are threatened. Union sympathizers are fired or intimidated. Yes, intimidation and harassment are illegal, but unions do not have the resources to take every alleged violation of law to the National Labor Relations Board, which deliberates with tortoise-like speed, and imposes the softest of penalties.

With Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the unions are looking for some payback.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed the Employee Free Choice Act by a 241-185, with 13 Republicans joining all but two Democrats in support of the measure. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers was not among them.

She and other bill opponents condemn its central provision, one that would do away with a vote if a majority of workers sign cards endorsing organization under a specified union. The secret ballot is sacrosanct, they say, and reliance on the proposed “card-check” system would open organizing efforts up to union coercion. They also do not care for a provision that establishes an arbitration process when the newly formed union and employer cannot agree on a first contract.

Imagine, Republicans on the barricades defending worker rights. This is a party, McMorris Rodgers included, that sat on minimum wage increases for years despite the escalating cost of living. She continues to vote against a federal minimum even though a boost imposed on other states would close the gap with Washington’s high minimum, which puts the state at some disadvantage.

But that does not make them wrong in the case of House Bill 800, the Free Choice bill. The proposed law would not balance the organization process; it would shift opportunities for coercion to the labor side from the employer side.

What is needed is a National Labor Relations Board far more earnest in pursuing complaints against employers who fire or otherwise harass employees promoting union representation. Labor groups, citing back-pay rulings, estimate that 20,000 workers are penalized each year for organizing activities. The NLRB itself says employers were ordered to reinstate almost 3,000 workers in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, and almost $111 million in back compensation was ordered.

Clearly, there are plenty of businesses out there who will do what they must to keep unions out of their shops.

HB 800 is not destined to be a solution to this problem. A filibuster is likely in the Senate, and a presidential veto is a certainty. The House vote was strictly for show.

More telling votes will come later this year. Of the board’s five members, two sit as a result of presidential recess appointments, which means the Senate did not vote on them. Those appointments expire at the end of this year’s session of Congress, unless the Senate acts.

President Bush might want a Presidential Free Choice Act when that fight is engaged.