http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/card-check-compromise-foes-to-meet-feinstein-2009-05-30.htmlBusiness leaders are scheduled to meet next week with a prominent Democratic senator who has proposed a compromise on a contentious union bill that industry has heavily lobbied against.
According to a schedule obtained by The Hill, executives are visiting Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) next Wednesday as part of a lobbying push against the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), legislation that would make union organizing much easier if passed. Business leaders from 12 different states, organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, are flying into Washington next week to lobby against the bill.
Feinstein has emerged as a key voice on the legislation. At first, her support for EFCA wavered since she is not a co-sponsor of the bill this Congress, unlike two years ago when she also voted for cloture on the bill. But now, Feinstein has floated a compromise for one of the bill’s provisions to help garner support from Senate centrists who are worried about angering the business community by voting for the bill.
EFCA is often called “card-check” because one of its provisions would allow workers to form unions not by secret ballot elections called for by management but by a majority of employees signing petition cards stating their intention to organize.
Feinstein’s compromise would replace that provision with a requirement that union elections be decided by mail-in ballots with the design that workers, not employers, would have a choice on when to form a union while their privacy would be protected from labor organizers.
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Union officials have been somewhat open to changes in the bill but business groups have lobbied against any compromise, saying the legislation would hurt industry revenue by leading to more strikes and work stoppages. They have hammered Feinstein’s proposal because they believe it would still lead to intimidation of workers by union organizers.
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