Why wait for the EFCA?

And so it begins..."Sacramento Senate Oks bill on union organizing" reads the headline earlier this week as Democratic senators approved a bill that would let farmworkers choose representation without the traditional ballot-booth elections.

Who says you need to wait for the Employee Free Choice Act to pass when you can do an end run around it.  The United Farm Workers show their political power even though they only have about 5,000 or so members.  They claim that one of the nation's largest producers of table grapes pressured laborers into defeating an attempt to organize workers three years ago.

Their plan--set up a process in which unions can request a "mediated election".  Workers would fill out a ballot to decide if they wanted to authorize a union at that point or make the decision through the traditional ballot-booth vote.  That would reduce the potential pressure that workers could face from growers as they walked into a voting booth, bill supporters said.

Really?  Is there a lot of pressure walking into a voting booth to vote in secret?  I guess there is no pressure from union organizers trying to make workers sign union authorization cards and checking the "Union Yes" box vs. the "Ballot-Booth" box...no pressure at all.

By the way democratic Senator Darrell Steinberg said helping farmworkers organize is the best way to improve working conditions and avoid more field deaths (heat-related).  Why? Does card-check come with shade and a bottle of Dasani?

Look for the veto by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger later this month.