Shuler sticks to pro-union vote

If you listen to local right-wing radio, perhaps you’ve heard them: Ads that disparage a proposed labor union reform bill and warn freshman Congressman Heath Shuler to vote against it. In Shuler’s case, it seems they wasted their time and money.

The bill, H.R. 800, aka the Employee Free Choice Act, passed the House on March 1 by a 241-185 vote, and Shuler—an unrepentant union supporter—cast his vote in favor despite a GOP ad campaign warning freshman Congress members they risked political (and one would assume campaign-donor) backlash. In tailored local ads heard on such stations as WWNC-570 AM, Shuler is mentioned by name.

While Shuler can often be inclined to reach across the aisle in support of Republican measures, one thing he has vowed not to bend on is his support of labor unions. Unlike the vast majority of people in North Carolina, which, along with South Carolina, has the nation’s lowest rate of unionization, Shuler was once a union member as part of the NFL Players’ Association. His postal worker father also was a union man. “It’s just a part of my life,” he recently told a group of Asheville business people who were mostly up in arms over the proposed legislation. Shuler, himself a successful businessman, told them as long as they treated their workers fairly, they should have nothing to fear.

So what’s the big deal behind this legislation? According to proponents, the reform measure, one of the most significant labor reforms in 70 years, might actually help reverse the massive erosion in union membership that began its free fall in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan. Employers have been arguing that they oppose it in order to protect workers, rather than themselves. Shuler disagrees.

Disclosure: I once was an anti-union shill as the editor of a national newsletter aimed at healthcare human-resource executives. Often the topic du jour was how to successfully avoid unionization using laws that clearly were tilted in favor of employers. While I consider myself safely astride the fence on the issue of unions, I have plenty of experience dealing with specialized consultants and other union busters highly skilled in using those laws. And while unions themselves have their own dark underbelly, they typically operate on an uneven playing field—a field that the law Shuler voted to pass would help level.

“The Employee Free Choice Act will protect the rights of workers to form unions if they desire and will help end the coercion and intimidation they often face from their employers,” said Shuler in an e-mail to Xpress. “This measure will help more American workers gain better wages, health care benefits, and working conditions.”

The e-mail also states: “Employees working to form a union often face harassment, intimidation, or firing for their activities. For example, in 2005 over 30,000 workers received back pay from employers that had illegally fired or otherwise discriminated against them for their activities. A recent study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research has also found that as many as one in five union activists are fired for their organizing activities. Many employers also force employees to attend anti-union one-on-one meetings with their direct supervisor.

“Under the current law, the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), there are two (2) methods of forming a union:
1: Employees wishing to form a union obtain signatures of
30% of the workforce on sign-up cards. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) then conducts an election.
2: Employees wishing to form a union obtain signatures of
over 50% of the workforce, and then have the employer voluntary recognize the union.

“With the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act employees will still have the ability to call an election under the NLRB. The change comes in Option 2. After obtaining a majority of the workforce’s signatures on sign-up cards, the employers will now have to recognize the union, if that is the method employees have chosen to elect their union representation.

“Contrary to the misleading rhetoric being used by some groups opposed to the Employee Free Choice Act, the bill does not take away a worker’s right to a secret ballot election,” which has become the key talking point used by bill opponents. Nor does it endanger North Carolina’s status as a right-to-work state, Shuler said recently.

In regards those ads, whether or not Shuler’s vote on this one bill will hurt his chances for reelection is anyone’s guess, and may even become moot. Should a final House/Senate bill make it to President Bush’s desk, the president recently stated he would veto it.

— Hal L. Millard, staff writer