Top union priority clears Senate

The Associated Press

SALEM - In a squeaker of a vote, the Oregon Senate approved a bill Monday preventing businesses from requiring workers to attend company-organized meetings about politics, religion and the labor movement.

Senate Bill 519 passed 16-14, with Democrats Ginny Burdick of Portland and Betsy Johnson of Scappoose joining all 12 Senate Republicans in opposition. It now moves to the House, which approved a similar bill two years ago but failed to win Senate agreement.

Introduced at the request of the Oregon AFL-CIO, the bill is a top priority for labor unions. "Workers should not have to give up their opinions or be lectured about their employer's beliefs to get a pay check," said Tom Chamberlain, the Oregon AFL-CIO president.

Joe Munger, who heads United Steelworkers Local 8378 in McMinnville, lobbied the all-Republican local delegation to support the bill, but to no avail. He said the aim is simply to prevent employers from mandating a "captive audience."

"This bill is being coined by some in the business community as an 'employer censorship' bill," Munger said in a letter to lawmakers. "That is not the case. When a union education or captive audience meeting is called by an employer during or before an organizing campaign, it simply makes it voluntary for the employee to attend."

Chamberlain said the measure was prompted by worker complaints from around the U.S. He noted that Walmart officials last year held mandatory meetings with their workers and used them to predict a negative impact if Democrats took charge in Congress and the White House.

He also cited a complaint the AFL-CIO got from a worker in Oregon who said he was disciplined after walking away from a lunchroom after his employer started making anti-Catholic religious statements.

But business groups are adamantly opposed. They contend the bill violates their right to communicate with employees under the National Labor Relations Act, and that existing laws already deal with employers who discriminate on the basis of religion, try to coerce workers into voting a certain way or retaliate for union activities.

Sen. Larry George, R-Sherwood, gave a passionate floor speech in opposition of the legislation.

Son of former Sen. Gary George and current Yamhill County Commissioner Kathy George, he recalled his days working on their Yamhill County hazelnut farm. He said employees were treated as family, even being invited to the family Thanksgiving Day dinner if they had no one to celebrate it with on their own.

"There are very few relationships that are so important in your daily life than your relationship between you and your employer," he said. "I've been an employee and I've been an employer, and I'll tell you what: Anybody who thinks that employers are evil or employees are evil doesn't understand that relationship.

"The fact is that those two interests are the same. They care about each other. They work together. It is the preservation of that relationship that makes small and family business work in the state of Oregon."

For a while, it appeared SB 519 might not even get a floor vote.

According to Northwest Labor Press, George secured a unanimous voice vote earlier in the session to refer the bill to the Rules Committee, a maneuver commonly used to kill legislation. However, it eventually emerged anyway.

Senate Minority Leader Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, said unions were trying to curtail the ability of employers to sit down with their employees to talk over issues that might affect the company.

The bill contains an exemption for political or religious organizations that by their nature focus on these issues. Still, he and others said the bill could pose a hardship for companies that offer such secular services as house painting, but make religious faith a central part of their mission.

In explaining her decision to join the united Republican bloc on the issue, Burdick said she feared inadvertent violations could damage small businesses. "If you are a small employer in Oregon struggling to get by, especially in an economy like this one, you cannot afford to take a chance on this kind of legal exposure," she said.

- News-Register reporter David Bates contributed to this report.