Battle in Congress deepens over Employee Free Choice Act

WASHINGTON — Business and labor groups are intensifying their battle over a measure that would make it easier to organize unions, offering a preview of what is certain to be one of the earliest and hardest-fought legislative battles in the new Congress.

The Employee Free Choice Act, which would be the most significant overhaul of federal labor law in six decades, would give workers who want a union two options: a card check or an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.

Unlike current law, employers would not be able to demand that workers cast secret ballots. The legislation also would require employers and unions to submit to binding arbitration if they are unable to reach a contract agreement within 120 days.

Democratic congressional leaders have said they plan to move on the bill quickly once Congress convenes in January. Labor leaders and other supporters said the measure would help restore bargaining power to workers whose wages have fallen behind inflation in recent years.

On the campaign trail, President-elect Obama expressed strong support for the measure, which he co-sponsored as a senator, and called it an essential element in his vision for restoring middle-class prosperity.

Labor organizers note that unionized workers earn 30 percent more than nonunion members in similar jobs and are much more likely to have health insurance and pension benefits.

Union workers in decline

Labor organizers said current rules allow companies to pressure workers through campaigns that often include closed-door meetings. They also said that the arbitration rule is necessary to prod employers to bargain in good faith. Currently, roughly one-third of new unions fail to reach agreements on contracts with their employers, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, a Cornell University researcher.

In the past quarter century, the share of workers in unions has declined from 20 percent to 12 percent, and many are public employees. Unions represent only 7.5 percent of private-sector employees. About 20 percent of workers in the Seattle area belong to unions, said King County Labor Council Executive Secretary Treasurer David Freiboth.

Passage of the legislation would mean "that the 60-plus percent of people in the country who have expressed the opinion that, if given a fair choice, they would be in a union job, would actually get to be in a union job," Freiboth said. "This is about allowing workers the fair opportunity to form or join a union and to restore the promise of the National Labor Relations Act passed in the '30s that has been undermined."

Greg Denier, spokesman for the labor coalition Change to Win, framed the issue as an economic-recovery package. "Workers' wages are what drive consumption," he said. "If [workers'] wages are stagnant, you are undermining the foundation of economic growth."

The proposed legislation is opposed by a growing number of business groups that frame it as an early test of Obama's economic pragmatism and see it as an attempt by unions to gain power they have lost as their ranks have dwindled.

"My sense is it will mean more unions," said Don Brunell, president of the Association of Washington Business, which opposes the measure. "And with looking at what has happened in the Boeing labor disputes, I'm not sure that's very good for business, especially in these economic times."

Rick Berman, founder of the Center for Union Facts, which also opposes the measure, sees the bill as "a wholesale change in the political-power structure in this country."

"People would be pressed into joining unions without having an opportunity to say 'no,' " he said. "Unions would collect billions of dollars in dues that they would use to hijack the political process for as far as the eye can see."

Secret ballots at issue

Opponents contend that the true intent of the bill is the elimination of secret ballots, an idea they said is undemocratic.

"In our judgment," Berman said, "that takes away the freedom of choice in the ballot box. Freedom of choice means that you don't have anybody looking over your shoulder in terms of how you fill out those cards."

"We are trying to shine a little broader spotlight on what we think are the dangerous aspects of this legislation, particularly in this economy," said Katie Packer, executive director of the Workforce Fairness Institute, one of a growing number of business coalitions working to defeat the measure.

Freiboth disagreed. "I think it's more threatening to have large employers like Wal-Mart and outfits like that, that have such economic power because they're not sharing their profits with their employees that can bargain, that small business are actually more threatened by the economic might of nonunionized megaconcerns," he said.

Seattle Times staff reporter Mark Rahner contributed to this report.