http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-917515.mp3
Phoenix, AZ – State lawmakers are meeting this afternoon over questions of how
unions can be formed. Arizona Public Radio's Howard Fischer
reports.
Under current federal law it takes an election by secret ballot
to form a union. But a measure being considered by Congress would
allow a union to be set up if more than half the affected workers
sign cards saying that's what they want. Business interests are
opposed to the system, known as card check. But with Congress in
Democratic hands, they have instead turned their attention to
getting voters here to amend the constitution to say unions can
be formed only by secret ballot. Attorney Clint Bolick of the
Goldwater Institute explains the push.
(With card check, it allows coercion by union organizers and
therefore increases the odds that a union would be formed where
it would not be formed if it were put to a secret ballot.)
Rebecca Friend of the AFL-CIO conceded that point. But she said
it's not that simple.
(What card check would do is eliminate the employer harassment of
workers who want to form unions, which we have studies over and
over that document in most union elections the employers use
tactics that sometimes are not legal, certainly questionable, to
pressure employees to vote against the unions.
If approved by lawmakers the measure would go on the ballot as
Proposition 113. For Arizona Public Radio this is Howard Fischer.