If you are in southwest Washington you are bombarded by the Oregon radio and television ads in the Gordon Smith v. Jeff Merkley race. It has been non-stop for the last six months. Gordon Smith is the Republican incumbent in a tight race to save his U.S. Senate seat. Merkley is the Democrat state legislator challenger.
Unions are pouring millions to defeat Smith, who has a 56% voting record with organized labor. The difference is Merkley is a 100% union voter and supports replacing secret ballot elections in the workplace with a card check process where union organizers circulate cards supporting unionization and stand over the workers shoulder while he or she fills it out. Then, BINGO, the union is in.
Democrat Barack Obama supports card check while Republican John McCain opposes it. So if Obama wins, the only hurdle the unions have to clear is getting 60 votes in the U.S. Senate to stop a filibuster of their coveted card check legislation now the President Bush is headed for retirement. So while the U.S. House of Representatives, firmly controlled by Democrats, has rubber stamped the union card check legislation, the U.S. Senate has not been overcome a threat of a filibuster.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has, for months, been defending the 60-vote wall, is fully engaged in nearly every competitive Senate race. It may well spend $40 million this cycle, or double its 2006 effort. In many Senate races, the Chamber is proving the only outside help to underfunded Republicans. One of those races is the Smith-Merkley race in Oregon.
Even former liberal U.S. Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern (D-South Dakota) says card check is wrong. “That is why I am concerned about a new development that could deny this freedom to many Americans,” wrote McGovern. “As a longtime friend of labor unions, I must raise my voice against pending legislation I see as a disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor. I am sad to say it runs counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the unheard, EFCA (so-called Employee Free Choice Act) risks silencing those who would speak.”
Sen. McGovern is correct. Remember that on election day.
Don C. Brunell, President (DonB@awb.org)
