Dems try new approach on ‘Card Check’
By: Susan Ferrechio
Chief Congressional Correspondent
June 2, 2009
The Senate is now working on a compromise version of the controversial “Card Check” bill that would allow employees to vote by mail on whether to unionize, rather than sign a petition in public.
While union and business groups remain at odds over the new proposal, Democratic backers of the bill are meeting privately this week with moderate lawmakers who have so far been unwilling to back a labor reform bill.
Those lawmakers, including Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Mark Pryor, D-Ark., will also meet with business groups who are descending on the Capitol this week in a coordinated effort to lobby against the latest proposal.
Senators are not talking about details of the new plan, but business groups who oppose it are preparing for battle on Capitol Hill as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., holds a midweek meeting about the proposal in her office that will include Specter, Pryor and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
Glenn Spencer, an executive director with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said 280 small-business owners and community leaders are flying into Washington and “will meet with their elected officials and tell them their concerns about the bill.”
Spencer said Feinstein and Harkin “are pushing hard to get a bill on paper,” before the July 4 recess.
Harkin spokeswoman Kate Cyrul would not confirm the Feinstein meeting, other than to say “things are progressing, things are moving and we are working toward labor reform this year.”
With new Democrat Specter facing a primary challenge from pro-labor Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Pa., labor leaders are hoping they can pull him to their side.
The new plan aims to win over opponents by restoring some of the privacy stripped from workers in the original bill, which altogether eliminated the existing secret ballot requirement for organizing votes. The new compromise bill also lengthens the time for unions and employers to work out disputes from 120 days outlined in the original bill to 180 days before binding, federal arbitration begins.
Currently, there is no requirement for arbitration.
The proposal under consideration in the Senate would allow the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to impose its own solution to a dispute after six months if the two sides cannot strike a deal on their own.
Labor groups want the threat of binding arbitration to prevent what they say is a common practice among companies of dragging out negotiations with workers. And organizers are calling for new balloting rules because they believe employer intimidation prohibits workers from voting to form unions.
But critics say binding arbitration could force companies to accept government solutions that could make it impossible for them to stay in business.
Opponents of the latest proposal are calling it “card check by mail” in part because union officials would be able to target home visits with employees and pressure them to vote to unionize.
