Resolution would ensure secret-ballot union votes
Utahns may get to vote next year on whether to ensure that company unionization elections are conducted by secret ballot.
The House Business and Labor Committee, by an 8-5 vote, on Tuesday passed out a resolution, HJR8, that proposes to amend the Utah Constitution to provide for secret ballots for "elections under state or federal law for public office, on an initiative or referendum or to designate or authorize employee representation."
The resolution would force a statewide vote on the matter in 2010, and, if passed by voters, the measure would take effect Jan. 1, 2011.
Supporters contended that secret ballots would lessen or eliminate intimidation or pressure by company officials and union representatives.
"What is more fundamental and essential than the individual freedom to cast a secret ballot without a corporate boss or a union boss looking over your shoulder?" asked the resolution's sponsor, Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman.
Current law allows for secret-ballot union votes if 30 percent of a company's employees petition the National Labor Relations Board for such an election. But the resolution is, in part, designed to head off a possible federal labor-law change, called the Federal Employee Free Choice Act, that would allow a union to form automatically if a majority of employees at a company sign cards saying they want a union.
The federal proposal "takes away the secret ballot completely," Wimmer said. "That is fundamentally flawed. It is un-American and it is anti-freedom. And this (Utah) resolution will say no. People have a right to cast their ballots in private. They have a right to cast them in secret so that nobody can pressure them."
Jim Judd, president of the Utah AFL-CIO, said unions face unfair conditions when trying to speak to employees about organizing.
"Employers are free to speak daily to captive audiences of workers or in one-on-one supervisor sessions and campaign against the union," Judd said. "Employers may predict that the unionization will lead to shutdowns, layoffs or outsourcing — a credible cause for concern. On the other hand, union representatives have no right to set foot in the workplace without the employer's permission. Employees can be banned from talking about the union except when they are on breaks or in the break areas."
Rep. Brian King, D-Salt Lake, said, "Often times there is quite a bit of disparity," with companies able to exert more influence on employees than unions can. But Wimmer said a secret ballot would keep votes secret from both the union and corporate leaders.
Troy Walker, chairman of the pro-resolution group Save Our Secret Ballot Utah, said the federal "card-check" proposal "probably represents one of the greatest elimination of voting rights and the greatest intrusion by the government into small business in our country probably in history. ... Unions form every day under the current law and there's really no impediment to the forming of a union in the workplace."
Walker said his group would collect signatures for a ballot initiative if the Legislature fails to act on Wimmer's resolution.
Robin Riggs, the Salt Lake Chamber's vice president and general counsel, endorsed the resolution. "From our standpoint, to fundamentally shift the way in which labor unions are formed is a step backwards," he said, referring to the federal proposal.
But Dale Cox, vice president of the Utah AFL-CIO and a district representative for Operating Engineers Local 3, said the federal amendment would not take away the secret-ballot option that currently exists with the 30 percent petition threshold.
Rep. Jay Seegmiller, D-Sandy, said the resolution's passage would "virtually make it impossible to organize any property in the state of Utah. … This also gives unfair advantage to businesses themselves that don't want to be organized because there isn't the equal access (to speak to employees), and that is the main problem."
Some committee members wondered about whether the federal action would pre-empt Utah law, but supporters said it would not. Several lawmakers urged Wimmer to have the Utah Constitutional Review Commission vet his resolution. He said he will meet with that group on Friday.