Businesses, unions spar over EFCA

The group of maintenance workers at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital wasn’t very big – about 20 in all – but a majority of them signed cards last year pledging their willingness to unionize.
All they had to do was hold a secret ballot vote, overseen by the National Labor Relations Board.
But that’s when the anti-union campaign began, according to Jack Callaci, an organizer for the United Nurses and Allied Professionals.
“There was nonstop propaganda,” Callaci recalled. “Their supervisors were trashing the union every day. These guys were subjected to repeated captive-audience meetings, where their employer would say, ‘Sit down and listen to what I have to say.’ ”
By the time the vote was held, some workers had changed their minds. The balloting result: a tie, which meant the workers could not unionize. UNAP immediately filed a complaint with the NLRB, disputing one of the votes, but a year later the case remains unresolved.
“We had a majority signed up,” he lamented last week. “Then the campaign started.”
Now Callaci and labor leaders nationwide who have seen rank-and-file numbers decline in recent years have renewed hope that a controversial federal bill called the Employee Free Choice Act will make it easier for workers to join unions.
The legislation – which for now has the backing of President-elect Barack Obama, a Democrat – would allow workers to form a bargaining unit if more than 50 percent of the employees in a workplace sign union cards, bypassing the secret balloting that tripped up UNAP’s organizing effort at Fatima last year.
The law would also raise the penalties for employers who commit unfair labor practices during organizing efforts and mandate arbitration when both the union and management cannot agree.
Employers have called it “anti-worker legislation,” complaining that doing away with secret votes violates workers’ rights to privacy and exposes them to intimidation by pro-union forces.
In 2007, the measure – also known as the “card check” bill – passed the House but not the Senate.
Even with a larger Democratic majority in the Senate after last month’s elections, it is unclear whether the EFCA has enough votes to pass. Obama said repeatedly said he would sign the act if he were to be elected.
The nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute said the political group Coalition for a Democratic Workplace – which the institute said has connections to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – spent more than $20 million during the campaign season for ads critical of EFCA in states where there were competitive Senate races.
Locally, Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman Bethany Costello says the Chamber is concerned particularly about the effect the act would have on small businesses, which she said could face more organizing drives if the labor laws are changed.
“The current system works fine,” Costello said.
For its part, labor is also willing to spend money to wage a battle for congressional votes. In addition to the hundreds of millions of dollars expended by labor during the campaign season, the Service Employees International Union has pledged $10 million to hold politicians accountable for their campaign promises.
Rhode Island’s unionization rate is the 12th highest in the country at 15 percent, according to the R.I. Department of Labor and Training.
Still, local union leaders see the EFCA as critical – despite labor’s influence in Rhode Island – because they insist the playing field has been tilted steeply in favor of business.
“It’s still difficult to organize the unorganized,” said Timothy Melia, an official with United Food and Commercial Workers Local 328, which represents about 11,500 workers in Rhode Island and nearby Massachusetts.
Warren Hayman, a Providence-based organizer with Unite Here! Local 217, said his union attempts to get neutrality agreements from employers in which both sides agree to forgo the secret ballot and, at the same time, pledge not to interfere while workers decide whether or to sign authorization cards.
That’s not what happened at Our Lady of Fatima Hospital when UNAP got a majority of maintenance workers to sign cards last December, and then was thwarted in secret balloting, at least for now.
Hospital administrators did not return calls but Callaci said the election outcome and delay in resolving the dispute over one of the votes highlights problems with the existing process. &#8226