Republicans will get chance soon to kill pro-union bill
6/15/2007, 2:17 p.m. EDT
By DAVID ESPO
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans have vowed to kill organized labor's top legislative priority of the year, and it looks like they'll soon get their chance.

The measure, which would make it easier for workers to form unions, cleared the House earlier this year on a party-line vote. It's been awaiting action in the Senate since March, and Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is circulating word that he'll seek passage before lawmakers begin their July 4 vacation.

A Republican filibuster is a certainty, and in a Senate narrowly divided along party lines, there's virtually no chance the bill's supporters can command the 60 votes needed to prevail.

The legislation, often called the card check bill, would certify a union as soon as a majority of workers at a plant signed cards authorizing it. Currently, employers have the right to demand a secret ballot election when their workers seek to organize a union.

The measure has long been on organized labor's wish list, but it didn't see the light of day until Democrats gained control of Congress last year and wanted to help those who had helped them.

"In the past few decades, labor law has been so twisted by corporations and their union-busting hired guns that it is now virtually impossible to form a union against an employer's wishes," AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said at the time the measure passed the House.

But if Democrats generally are aligned with labor, Republicans and business are political allies.

President Bush threatened a veto of the legislation last winter, and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky told reporters it was his intention to "not allow that (bill) out of the Senate."

"We went to the secret ballot in the early 1800s in this country for a darn good reason: If somebody's looking over your shoulder, your ballot doesn't mean much," McConnell said on March 30.

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