Kulo's hand forced on card-check
Pro-union Gov. gets pro-business test
Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski has been invited to referee a raging Oregon agricultural labor dispute, forcing a dramatic leadership test on the two-term Democrat. The spat has put Whole Foods Market on trial, resulted in the firing of the trendy upscale market's spokesperson, and threatens to roil Oregon's sensitive, emerging 'natural food' export market.
The crux of the issue: Beef Northwest wants its employees to vote in a secret-ballot union recognition election, a right workers enjoy under the National Labor Relations Act. But the United Farm Workers union is demanding card-check recognition, with no election. As Governor, Kulongoski has the authority to mediate the dispute and has been asked to do so.
The problem for Kulongoski is that he often poses as 'pro-business' but is an even more enthusiastic supporter of organized labor and its #1 agenda item - card-check. Kulongoski championed the anti-democratic reform into Oregon law for public employees just 2 years ago.
Related video: "Ore. Governor signs no-vote, anti-democratic union authorization law"
Kulongoski, a one-time labor-lawyer who also served as Attorney General and Supreme Court justice, now has an important decision: either send an anti-business message to Oregon employers and an anti-democratic message to Oregon workers, repudiate his powerful organized labor cronies, or abdicate to the Oregon courts. Look for NWR's continuing coverage as this fascinating story unfolds.
Below, read an excerpt from the Baker City Herald story that leads today's issue of The Union News. Full story: here.Whole Foods goes back to non-union beef
Related story: "Whole Foods cancels non-union beef"
Pro-union Gov. asked to back UFW off card-check demand
Ranchers-members of Country Natural Beef received some good news Monday Monday when Whole Foods Market officials reversed an earlier request asking the ranchers to stop placing cattle with Beef Northwest feedlot.
"We need to let the public know Whole Foods will continue taking Country Natural Beef cattle, including cattle fed at the Beef northwest feedlot," said Stacy Davies, marketing team leader for Country Natural Beef.
He said the United Farm Workers and Beef Northwest, a feedlot operating company headquartered in North Powder, have been locked in a labor dispute for some time and are working to resolve differences over how a vote will be conducted of non-management employees at the Beef Northwest feedlot in Boardman - where Country Natural Beef is fed.
United Farm Workers has been putting tremendous pressure on Whole Foods to intervene. They were getting thousands of emails per day promoted by UFW seeking to force Country Natural beef to stop placing cattle bound for Whole Foods Markets at the Beef Northwest feedlot.
In response to the union pressure tactics, Whole Foods officials requested in May that the 120 rancher-members of Country Natural Beef, including 16 in Baker County stop placing their hormone- and antibiotic-free cattle at the Beef Northwest feedlot.
That request was reiterated as recently last week by a Whole Foods spokesperson. However, on Monday, a new Whole Foods spokesperson, Livva Letton, announced that the request to stop placing cattle at the Beef Northwest feedlot has been withdrawn.
Livvy said the original request asking CNB ranchers to place their cattle with another feedlot "was an effort to get UFW to stop punishing our brand to pressure Beef Northwest" to accept their conditions for feedlot workers to vote on union representation by UFW.
Davies said Country Natural Beef, with the support of its major customers, including Whole Foods, Burgerville and New Seasons markets, have requested that Ore. Gov. Ted Kulongoski step in and set up a neutral process to allow Beef Northwest workers to vote in a fair election within the next two weeks or CNB will ask the National Labor Relations Board to step in and help resolve the labor dispute between UFW and Beef Northwest.
Davies said in the absence of state labor laws governing union organizing in agriculture, Kulongoski as the state's chief executive officer is the one person with authority to step in and help resolve the dispute. He said the governor has been asked to set up a neutral election through the executive branch, or direct the judicial branch to do it.
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6 comments:
Kulo wants to be Obama's Labor Secretary ... that calculus will guide his decision. Best guess he'll abdicate and let the courts have it. Second guess, he'll rule for the Farm Workers. Either way, the workers can kiss the secret-ballot goodbye; the union will get whatever they want. This is Oregon, and Oregon is for union-only dreamers.
Gee - wonder if your governor will side with the union.
Hmm - what would a union puppet do?
OKay you almost had me about the card check issue.
The Supreme Court has upheld the use of card check
here is the quote.
"Almost from the inception of the Act, then, it was recognized that a union did not have to be certified as the winner of a Board election to invoke a bargaining obligation; it could establish majority status by other means ... by showing convincing support, for instance, by a union-called strike or strike vote, or, as here, by possession of cards signed by a majority of the employees authorizing the union to represent them for collective bargaining purposes"
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?friend=nytimes&navby=volpage&court=us&vol=395&page=600#600
Now what is interesting here is it looks like the union is well within it's rights to just get a majority of workers to sign up for the union, thus creating a union as far as the SCOTUS is concerned.
Anon 12:10 - it's not a judicial question. It's a political question. What manner of union recognition is democratic and protects all sides' rights? Not, what can union officials get away with ... and what will the court accept?
anon 12:10,
anon104 is correct. It is not a question as to whether or not the Supreme Court says it is legal.
It is a question as to whether or not you should be forced to give up your right to a private ballot if a bunch of thug organizers show up to your work site...call your house... show up to your door...
"Say Sam...Have you signed your 'card' yet? I mean we KNOW you are with us on this. RIGHT?"
Instead of calling for a secret ballot that allows workers the freedom to express their position, unencumbered with the pressure from the paid thugs who are there to make darned good and sure that you are going to vote to create a union.
It's about democracy and freedom of conscience. Something that the Democrats have been working hard to do away with.
It will be interesting to see how Senate candidate Merkley responds to questions about this issue. My guess is since he was a co-sponsor of HB 2891 which makes it easier for unions to organize public employees, he will be in favor of this as well.
It's amazing to me that Democrats would support this legislation since the Employee Free Choice Act will eliminate the National Labor Relations Board and Democrats consistently support more government agencies because it means more union jobs.
I guess in this case, losing a few union employees who work for the NLRB is outweighed by the potential to gain tens of thousands of new union members through coercion, intimidation and threats after EFCA is passed.
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