[R-G] Anti-union lobby fears 'Armageddon on Capitol Hill'

[Sid Shniad]

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/anti-union-lobby-fears-armageddon-on-capitol-hill/article1210343/ 



Globe and Mail Report on Business July 8, 2009 



Anti-union lobby fears 'Armageddon on Capitol Hill' 



Canadianized 'card-check' bill assailed by Republicans, Canadian executives 








BARRIE MCKENNA 



WASHINGTON — A pitched lobbying battle between Big Business and Big Labour over legislation that would make it much easier for workers to organize is shaping up as the first major test of U.S. President Barack Obama's loyalty to the unions who helped elect him. 



And like the raging debate about reforms to U.S. health care, the Canadian experience has become a rallying cry for business groups that want the proposed legislation stopped in its tracks. 



At issue is the "card-check" bill, which would mandate automatic recognition of a union once half the members of a work force signed a membership card - a model that Canadian provinces have gradually been moving away from since the 1980s. 



The bill would also impose mandatory government arbitration of a first contract if an employer could not reach an agreement with its workers. 



Organized labour, led by the AFL-CIO, has hailed the legislation as a way to stop the long decline of union membership across the United States, enabling it to get a foot in the door at reluctant employers, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. 



Major U.S. businesses are warning that the legislation - known as the Employee Free Choice Act - would be an economic disaster for companies. Randy Johnson, senior vice-president of labour issues for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warned yesterday of "Armageddon on Capitol Hill" if Congress were to move to Canadianize the U.S. labour laws. 



"We'll do whatever it takes to defeat the legislation, and we will defeat it," Mr. Johnson vowed. 



Several Canadian business leaders, including executives of Bank of Montreal, Canadian Tire dealers and a leading Toronto law firm, joined the fray at a gathering in Washington, where they implored Americans not to repeat Canada's mistakes by making it too easy for unions to organize. 



"In the interest of my Canadian clients, if Congress chooses to shoot itself in the commercial foot with this legislation, God bless you, because we're constantly competing against you," said Stewart Saxe, a labour relations partner at Baker & McKenzie in Toronto. 



Under current U.S. law, unions must first apply to the National Labour Relations Board and then wait 40 days for a secret ballot vote by workers - a delay that labour organizers have long argued allows employers time to intimidate workers into not joining a union. 



Most Canadian provinces have abandoned card-check rules, but still have significantly more permissive union organizing laws than in the United States. Most provinces, for example, require a certification vote within five to 10 days after a union applies for certification, and employers are limited in what they can say during that period. 



Those laws, and a history of greater union penetration in Canada, have resulted in sharply different workplace landscapes in the two countries. Roughly 30 per cent of Canadian workers belong to a union, including about 16 per cent of private sector employees. In the United States, union membership stands at about 13 per cent, with just 8 per cent in the private sector. 



In Quebec, which has card-check laws, unions have managed to gain a toehold at only one Wal-Mart store, in St-Hyacinthe; that outlet is the chain's only unionized store in Canada. 



Normand Côté, Bank of Montreal's director of employee relations, said the bank is union-free and happy to keep it that way. "We like to communicate directly with employees," he said. 



Art Tarasuk, general counsel for the Canadian Tire Dealers Association, said unions made significant inroads at its stores when card-check rules were commonplace across Canada in the 1980s. Now, only six of its roughly 1,100 stores are unionized, down from more than 15 in the 1980s. 



Experts say the impact of Canadian card-check rules have been wildly exaggerated in the heat of the U.S. debate. 



"If you listen to opponents of the legislation in the U.S., you would think unions are going to emerge out of the mud and take over the economy," said Ann Frost, an industrial relations expert and associate professor at the University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business. "I don't think card check will make a huge difference." 



She acknowledged that Canadian labour relations boards are typically more effective in stifling efforts by companies to intimidate workers seeking to unionize. 



Frank Reid, a professor of employment relations at the University of Toronto, said it's difficult to draw a clear link between Canadian laws and union rates, which he pointed out are declining in Canada. 



The U.S. bill is currently stalled in the Senate, where Democrats have a 60-40 vote majority, giving them the ability to override any delaying tactics by opposition Republicans. 



Even so, the Chamber of Commerce's Mr. Johnson expects that the bill, as drafted, will not be approved. He said efforts are under way to strike a compromise, possibly by moving to a Canadian-style system of quick certification votes, which has been endorsed by a clutch of employers, including Starbucks and Costco.