Diminished expectations: Democratic labor bill waters down 'card check'
House Democrats will vote Thursday on legislation that amounts to a wish list for unions but waters down one measure labor leaders have wanted for years: card check. Card check, which would make labor organizing far easier by effectively removing secret ballot elections, was a goal of Democrats during the Obama administration and was a top priority for unions. Yet the Democratic legislation teed up for this week, the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, doesn't include it.
The PRO Act does include changes to union election rules, but they don't go quite as far. "Yes, it isn’t as broad as a card check provision. It is remedial," said Wilma Liebman, the former chairwoman of the National Labor Relations Board during the Obama administration who is currently an adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law. The NLRB is the federal agency that monitors union elections.
Card check critics counter that Democrats have resorted to backdoor means to advance the idea. "This provision, combined with language that hands over employees’ personal information to union bosses, will subject workers to increased harassment and intimidation from union organizers," said a Republican aide for the Education and Labor Committee. The Employee Free Choice Act, the Democrats' main card check bill in 2009 and subsequent years, would have stripped employers of the right to request a federally monitored election in the case that a union demanded recognition. Ordinarily, unions present employers with cards signed by workers when they demand recognition. Employers then have the option of accepting the union's claim or requesting that the NLRB hold an election to verify that the workers do want a union. If the union wins the election, it gets recognition. Card check, instead, would have made recognition automatic when the union presented the cards, hence the name. Critics allege that card check would leave no way to tell whether the cards' signatures were forged or whether the workers didn't understand what they were signing. Despite a heavy push for this in Congress by unions in Obama's second term, Democratic leaders at the time never brought card check up for a vote. A strong pushback from the business community lead by the Chamber of Commerce over several years is credited with stalling the legislation. Opposing card check was one of the business community's top issues during Obama's second term.
The PRO Act does include language that would allow the NLRB to nullify a workplace election and grant a union recognition at its discretion if an employer is found guilty of a workplace violation during the election. But that would require having an election first, whereas card check would circumvent elections entirely. The PRO Act rules would encourage unions to try to game the system by pushing for recognition if they feel the current NLRB is sympathetic, Young said. The board's majority is nominated by the president and as a result typically moves along with the current administration.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/economy/diminished-expectations-democratic-labor-bill-waters-down-card-check
https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2474