Organized labor's top legislative priority the last couple years -- the inaptly titled and gratuitously unconstitutional "Worker Privacy Act" -- failed to move in Washington this session after examination of its legal and policy defects slowed it, and a bizarre e-mail scandal killed it.
But the misguided measure appears to have life across the southern border. The Statesman Journal reports this morning that the Oregon Senate has passed a functionally identical version of the bill. The vote sends it to the Oregon House, which has already passed the bill in a prior session.
Under the guise of protecting employees from forced communication about matters of political or religious belief, the law is designed to restrict effective employer-employee communication during labor organizing and collective bargaining campaigns. Federal labor law balances what unions and employers may do and say during organizing and bargaining.
The purpose of this bill is to use state law (and the threat of an employment lawsuit and punitive damages) to tilt the balance in the union's favor by taking away the employer's right to call a meeting of its employees to express its views. To paraphrase the U.S. Supreme Court, it would allow the unions to continue fighting freestyle while requiring the employer to follow the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
If Oregon passes the measure and Governor Kulongoski signs it, it will be the first state in the country to have adopted the full version of this national AFL-CIO model bill. Because of the bill's dubious legality, however, a legal challenge would be reasonably anticipated.
