Organized Labor Resorting to Hardball Political to Pressure for Labor Law Reform
As we reported in “With EFCA ‘Reform’ on Hold in Congress, Unions Turn to State Legislatures for Labor Law Change,” Kris Maher wrote an article discussing the signing into law of the “Worker Freedom Act” in Oregon, which prohibits employers from holding mandatory meetings with employees to discuss union organizing. In Washington state, Oregon’s neighbor to the North, a similar bill, the “Worker Privacy Act” has been proposed. This bill was gaining momentum towards passage until an e-mail chain from Jeff Johnson, Special Assistant to the President Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO was leaked. In this e-mail, Mr. Johnson stated, “Union leaders would send a message to the State Democratic party and to the Truman and Roosevelt funds from the House and Senate that ‘not another dime from labor’ until the Governor signs the Worker Privacy Act.”
In his article, Maher stated that once the e-mail was leaked to Washington State lawmakers they dropped the bill on the grounds that the e-mail raised “legal and ethical questions.”
