Smith feeling pressure to support Free-Choice Act

Union members are putting pressure on Oregon’s Republican U.S. Senator Gordon Smith to support the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize and get their first union contract.

“This is the issue for the labor movement,” said Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain. “It’s about workers’ ability to join a union and collectively bargain, and it’s how we save the middle class in America.”

The House passed the bill 241-185 on March 1. National AFL-CIO officials think the Senate will vote on it as early as mid-June.

So far, 47 Democratic U.S. senators have signed on as sponsors of the bill, including Oregon’s other senator, Ron Wyden. No Republican senator has yet signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill, but with Smith facing re-election in 2008 in a state that is trending Democratic, the national AFL-CIO hasn’t written him off.

In mid-April, the federation set up a toll-free hotline — 1-800-774-8941 — for union supporters anywhere in America to call their senators about the bill. Callers hear a short message, enter their zip code, and are connected to the office of one of their senators. In Oregon, that’s Smith, because Wyden is already on board. Oregonians have made about 900 calls to the hotline, more than residents of any other state.

That may be in part because the Oregon AFL-CIO has assigned political organizer Elana Guiney to work on the issue. Guiney also collected about 4,000 post cards signed by union members supporting passage of the bill, and planned to deliver them to Smith and Wyden this week.

To argue for the bill, Chamberlain visited Smith in Washington, DC, May 16. Smith told Chamberlain he agrees the system is broken, but doesn’t think the Employee Free Choice Act is the best way to fix it; he’s opposed to the bill’s requirement that employers recognize unions on the basis of majority signup (card-check) and the requirement that the first contract be established by binding arbitration if workers and employers can’t reach agreement.

“I’m discouraged by what he [Smith] said, but I don’t think working people in Oregon should let him off the hook,” Chamberlain said. “The worst thing that could happen right now is for him to say ‘I’m not voting for it’ and then not get phone calls from people about it. He needs to hear from working people.”