Card check compromise floated

By Lisa Mascaro

Tuesday, March 24, 2009 | 2 a.m.

A proposal by three big retailers — Starbucks, Costco and Whole Foods — to offer an alternative to the union-backed card check bill landed to mixed reviews Monday on Capitol Hill, where some say it will not advance.

The companies are seeking to launch a “third way” on the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for workers to opt for union representation.

“What we’re calling for is a dialogue,” said Eileen O’Connor, an attorney with the newly formed Committee for a Level Playing Field. The group is represented by Washington power attorney Lanny Davis, a former official in the Clinton administration.

“The companies really came to us saying they were uncomfortable with the polarization of the issue, the polarization of the debate,” O’Connor said.

The bill is among the most divisive on the Hill. It would allow workers to use the majority sign-up, or card check, system to vote in a union, rather than having to prevail in secret-ballot elections.

The compromise the big three offered would continue to mandate secret-ballot elections, which management prefers, but require that elections be promptly held.

One of labor’s biggest complaints has been that management drags out the election process and uses the intervening time to intimidate workers against forming a union. Management counters that unions will be able to use the sign-up process to intimidate workers into joining.

But the proposal appears to have split the business community, while rallying the labor unions to stand firmly against a compromise.

Labor is unwilling to forgo the card check component, the centerpiece of the Employee Free Choice Act. Unions also support binding arbitration if managers and workers are unable to agree on a first contract — which the proposal from the big three retailers would eliminate.

Mark McCullough, a spokesman for the Service Employees International Union, said the proposal “maintains the status quo. It offers no serious attempt at labor law reform.”

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, among the chief opponents of card check, expressed mild interest Monday.

The Chamber’s Glenn Spencer said “there are some interesting ideas in this set of principles.”

But the anti-card check National Right to Work Committee said “to float compromises could derail the ability to kill the bill outright.”

Republican Sen. John Ensign, among the top opponents of card check in Congress, said the proposal is “not going anywhere.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who supports the Employee Free Choice Act, “is encouraged to hear some in the business community acknowledge that we must address existing labor laws,” spokesman Jon Summers said.

But the senator “is also aware that some of his colleagues believe this proposal falls short in very critical areas,” Summers said.