The labor movement, not for the first time, is sending mixed messages about “card-check” legislation.
In Washington, John Sweeney, the outgoing president of the AFL-CIO, said that he would support dropping the card check provision of the Employee Free Choice Act (which would permit unions to organize without elections) – in exchange for provisions that would call for speedy elections – within 5 or 10 days of a certain number of workers petitioning for the union.
In California, the United Farm Workers – which has the right to such speedy elections through the state’s landmark Agricultural Labor Relations Act – has decided such speedy elections don’t work and instead has been pushing legislation that would allow the union to organize by card check. Last week, UFW rallied its political and labor allies, and threatened to oppose badly needed water legislation if Schwarzenegger didn’t sign the legislation. (He vetoed it anyway).
So which is the better policy, speedy elections or card check?
There are a couple different answers to that.
Here’s the technical one. I’ve previously argued in this space for what Sweeney suggests: speedy elections instead of card check. I think it’s indisputable that the current labor laws permit companies to delay elections for too long and use that time to intimidate workers. But I do fear that card check would give unions more of an opening to engage in some of the same kind of delay and intimidation that companies practice. For all you labor folks who are reading that sentence and thinking, “That’s bull—we wouldn’t abuse the card check power,” let me pose this question, in light of the persistent internal SEIU war between international president Andy Stern and Sal Rosselli, former leader of a major SEIU affiliate in California: Would all you backers of Stern trust Rosselli’s folks with the power to decertify union locals via card check? Would you Rosselli backers trust Stern with the same card check power?
No? I thought so.
The only circumstances under which “card check” legislation would make sense is if the legislation also permitted “card check” for workers who want to decertify the union at their workplace. (The Employee Free Choice Act pointedly requires secret ballot elections for decertification). Speedy elections – if they’re backed with greater penalties for employers who coerce workers – are the best way to protect workers from intimidation, by employers and by unions.
Now here’s the practical answer. Granting “card check” power to the UFW would make little difference. As my former colleague Miriam Pawel writes in today’s LA Times [LINK: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-pawel9-2009sep09,0,988967.story], the UFW is a spent force. The union has been unable to organize effectively even under the favorable terms of the ALRA (and even with considerable financial and organizational assistance from other unions). It’s hard to believe that “card check” would change the dynamic.
That’s true across the country, not just in California’s fields. The labor movement is so broken and divided that its problems can’t be solved by changing organizing methods.