Labor Seeks Election Rewards; Union Organizing Rights Could Be Early Obama Test
Bolstered by exit polling data showing that union members played a pivotal role in President-elect Barack Obama's victory, the AFL-CIO served notice yesterday that it views the election results as ratification of organized labor's ambitious agenda.</br></br>Labor's top priority is passage of legislation that would make it easier to organize unions, which advocates say would help labor groups expand their shrinking numbers and win better wages and benefits for average workers, whose pay has stagnated in the last eight years.</br></br>"In an economy that gives corporations far too much power, a union card remains the single best ticket into the middle class," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. Union membership has dropped from 20 percent to 12 percent of all U.S. workers over for the past quarter century.</br></br>The Employee Free Choice Act, which would require employers to recognize unions once a majority of workers sign cards of support, is fiercely opposed by business groups that argue the measure would cost jobs and further weaken the nation's economy.</br></br>Currently, employers can demand that workers hold secret-ballot elections to determine whether to form unions, something labor organizers say allows companies to run campaigns that pressure workers into voting against organizing. At the same time, business leaders say the so-called "check card" legislation would deny workers a secret ballot, leaving them vulnerable to being coerced into supporting the formation of a union.