Unions to press Obama, Congress for new rules

WASHINGTON — After making millions of phone calls and knocking on millions of doors to elect Barack Obama, the nation's labor unions have begun a new campaign: to get the new president and Congress to pass legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize.

Unions — delighted that they will have a friend in the White House after eight years of fighting President Bush — also plan to push for universal health coverage and a huge stimulus program to create jobs and counter the downturn.

"Our major priority in the short and long term is to get the economy working for Americans who work," said Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union.

But corporate America has already declared war on labor's push for new legislation that would help unions organize.

"This will be Armageddon," said Randel Johnson, vice president for labor policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Labor's No. 1 priority is a piece of legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as the card-check bill. The bill would give workers the right to join a union as soon as a majority of employees at a workplace signed cards saying they wanted one.

Business groups have attacked the legislation because it would take away employers' right to insist on holding a secret-ballot election to determine whether workers favored unionization.

With union membership sliding to 7.5 percent of the private-sector work force, one-third the rate in 1983, unions see enactment of the bill as the single most important step toward reversing their loss of membership and power.

Some labor leaders predict that if the bill is passed, unions, which have 16 million members nationwide, would add at least 5 million workers to their rolls over the next few years.

"We really need fundamental change to counterbalance corporate power and reverse the decline of the middle class, and that's why we support the Employee Free Choice Act," said John Sweeney, the AFL-CIO's president.

Thomas J. Donohue, the chamber's president, criticized the card-check bill as "payback" that labor unions were expecting in return for their campaign efforts.

But Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO's director of government affairs, disagreed, noting that Obama and his vice-president-elect, Joseph Biden, had co-sponsored the act as senators.

"This is not about payback," Samuel said. "We're looking to work with the new administration on a shared set of priorities that focus on lifting workers and improving the economy."