Amidst more publicized efforts to refer recently passed tax increases to the ballot, the director of Oregon FreedomWorks has joined with a conservative Salem-area legislator in an attempt to get a measure on the 2010 Oregon ballot aimed at banning the "card check" method of unionization that was passed by lawmakers two years ago.

 

FreedomWorks Director Russ Walker — also the Vice President of the Oregon Republican Party — and state Rep. Kim Thatcher (R-Keizer) are chief petitioners for a proposed constitutional amendment that would establish a "right to a secret ballot" in public and private elections. The phrase "private election" is meant to take aim at union organizing campaigns. 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.

 

The proposal is a response to HB 2891, passed by the 2007 Oregon Legislature, which established majority sign-up, or card check, for public sector organizing in Oregon. With card check, workers are automatically organized as a union if a majority of eligible employees signs a union authorization card — there is no follow-up election. It's a practice favored by unions because it's simpler and faster elections, plus there's less chance for employer interference and bullying.

 

In an interview with the Northwest 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.

 

It's not actually clear if Walker and Thatcher's constitutional amendment would have the intended effect they desire. Their proposal says all "elections" have to be conducted by secret ballot; 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. In other words, HB 2891 had no impact on workers under the NLRB's jurisdictional umbrella.

 

Walker and Thatcher's 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. As a constitutional measure, it would then need 110,358 valid signatures to get on the ballot.

 

Thatcher, who will frequently express that she "has nothing against unions," has nevertheless filed anti-labor initiative petitions before, including a "paycheck protection" proposal for the 2006 ballot and a "right-to-work" measure for the 2008 ballot. But Thatcher has deep ties to Walker and FreedomWorks. It was FreedomWorks, then known under the moniker Citizens For a Sound Economy, that pushed the politically unknown Thatcher to a 2004 Republican primary election win over then-state Rep. Vic Backlund (R-Keizer). Backlund, a retired teacher and coach, was a moderate Republican that Walker's group viewed as "too liberal."

 

Walker is also currently knee-deep in the attempt to refer the corporate minimum tax increase and the income tax increase for those earning over $250,000 to the 2010 ballot. That effort is spearheaded by Oregon Republican Party President Bob Tiernan, who many will recall as a vitriolic anti-union legislator in the mid-1990s.

 

— Editor's note: Thanks to the Northwest Labor Press for much of the information contained in this article.