Union foes file initiative to ban card-check

Two union foes may try to get a measure on the 2010 Oregon ballot that’s aimed at banning the “card check” method of unionization. With card check, workers unionize when a majority sign cards asking for it. It’s favored by unions because it’s simpler and faster than the alternative method — a workplace union election.

Russ Walker, vice chairman of the Oregon Republican Party, and Kim Thatcher, a Republican member of the Oregon House from Keizer, are chief petitioners for a proposed constitutional amendment that would establish a “right to a secret ballot” in public and private elections. Scott Moore of the labor-supported watchdog group Our Oregon said it’s one of numerous attacks on working families that are planned for the 2010 ballot.

Elections for public office and ballot measures are already conducted by secret ballot (and there’s no move to change that), so the relevant part of the proposed amendment is its requirement that elections for “designation or authorization of employee representation” be conducted by secret ballot.

In an interview with the Labor Press, Thatcher confirmed the measure is intended to eliminate card check.

“It doesn’t seem right to have somebody breathing down your neck wanting you to sign something,” Thatcher said. “You might just do it to get them off your back.”

Thatcher said she didn’t know of any cases in Oregon where workers were intimidated into signing union cards.

“All I know is, the thought of it bothers some of my constituents, family members and friends who I’ve discussed it with,” Thatcher said. And for her, that’s apparently enough to justify amending the Oregon Constitution.

But it’s not actually clear the constitutional amendment would have the intended effect. The amendment says all elections have to be conducted by secret ballot. But card check, arguably, isn’t an election. If the amendment did end up being interpreted as banning card check, it would likely be challenged in federal court, at least as it applied to the private sector workers who are covered under the National Labor Relations Act. That federal labor law, which permits employers to recognize unions on the basis of card check, also pre-empts states from modifying the rules that govern how workers unionize.

Walker and Thatcher’s campaign turned in the necessary 1,000 valid signatures June 23 to get the process started, and the initiative is now before the attorney general’s office awaiting a ballot title. Once a ballot title is issued, it would be approved to circulate. The measure would then need 110,358 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

Thatcher has filed anti-union initiative petitions before, including a “paycheck protection” proposal for the 2006 ballot, and a “right-to-work” measure for the 2008 ballot.