Anti-Union Ballot Measures Target Workers’ Rights

[Omaha Steve]

http://blog.aflcio.org/2010/10/27/anti-union-ballot-measures-target-workers-rights/

This is a cross-post from the Electrical Workers (IBEW).

Under the guise of protecting the secret ballot, right-wing groups have placed anti-union measures on the ballots of four states–Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah–that would outlaw majority sign-up as a means for union recognition. These groups are hoping to spike the Employee Free Choice Act, the legislation which would remove many of the obstacles to workers exercising their right to join a union.

Says Sioux Falls, S.D., Local 426 member and South Dakota Federation of Labor President Mark Anderson in a statement from the “No on Amendment K” campaign:

The so-called “secret ballot” amendment was written to trap voters in to supporting a measure designed to undermine workers’ rights to form unions. Only 6.6 percent of South Dakota are represented by a union….Still the supporters of Amendment K are asking voters to help them make it harder for workers to form unions and bargain for better wages.

The initiatives specify that all elections, including ones in the workplace, be done by secret ballot. But as the editorial board of the Salt Lake City Tribune writes, in opposition to Amendment A:

Federal law already provides the secret ballot for union organizing elections the state constitution already provides…that “all elections shall be by secret ballot.”

The Employee Free Choice Act does not eliminate the secret ballot, but gives employees the option of using majority sign-up when forming a union. Currently employers decide whether workers must use a secret ballot or not, even if a strong majority signs authorization cards.

The act is deadlocked in Congress, leading Phoenix Local 387 member and Arizona AFL-CIO Executive Director Rebekah Friend to say about her state’s Proposition 113:

This is a bill against a bill that hasn’t been passed.

Another concern is that the measures, as an attempt to pre-empt federal labor law, could entangle states in costly lawsuits.

FULL story at link.