IBEW Local 1245 News

Posted: August 9, 2004

NLRB COULD SLAM DOOR ON ‘CARD CHECK’ UNION ORGANIZING

In a move with ominous implications for the right of workers to organize unions, the National Labor Relations Board has decided to review the legitimacy of the organizing procedure known as “card check.”

Organizing a union is already a perilous undertaking for workers. Companies routinely hold mandatory anti-union meetings and harass workers during organizing drives. Formal complaints of discrimination against workers who favor unionizing have risen to over 10,000 per year.

The main alternative to NLRB-supervised union representation elections is the card-check system, whereby an employer voluntarily recognizes the union when more than 50% of the workers sign union representation cards.

Card check has been legal since 1935, and the NLRB has repeatedly ruled it so, according to David Swanson, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association.

“Card check was once the standard procedure for forming a union and has been relied on increasingly in recent years” as employers have grown more aggressive in thwarting NLRB-supervised elections.

A survey of 400 NLRB election campaigns in the late 1990s found that 36% of workers who vote against union representation credit employer pressure with determining their vote.

Despite this massive amount of anti-union propaganda, recent surveys have found that 42 million employees who are not represented by a union would like to have representation at work, said Swanson.

The NLRB vote to review the card check process was a close one: 3-2. If the NLRB does not issue a ruling before the November election, the election itself could determine whether card check remains a legal option for workers because the next president will have the opportunity to appoint new commissioners to the NLRB.

President Bush’s appointees took the lead in pushing for the review of card check. Senator John Kerry, the Democratic candidate, has openly declared his support for the card check system. In fact, Kerry is a cosponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would require recognition of a union following submission of cards from over 50% of workers.

The Employee Free Choice Act was introduced last November by Senator Edward Kennedy and Representative George Miller. Besides requiring card check recognition, it would provide that either an employer or a union could refer a first-contract negotiation to mediation by the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service.

The bill would also impose stronger penalties for discrimination against an employee in response to the employee's organizing efforts.

Republicans also have a bill on the subject. Their bill would eliminate the use of card check representation altogether.