Utah is one of five states targeted by a national group fighting to protect secret ballots in response to federal legislation aimed at easing the process of workers forming a union.
The Las Vegas-based group Save Our Secret Ballot is pushing constitutional amendments in the Beehive State, along with Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri and Nevada
Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, is sponsoring the Utah proposed amendment.
"The fact is, the right to a secret ballot is being threatened, and I want to make sure in Utah it is secure," Wimmer said. He said he is not aiming the legislation at "a particular agenda or issue," but said that, although he hasn't read the Employee Free Choice Act, the federal legislation's "general philosophy" is aimed at taking away the right to a secret ballot.
The act would keep current practice for forming a union, said Jim Judd, president of the Utah AFL-CIO. When 40 percent of a business's work force wants to form a union, workers petition the National Labor Relations Board to conduct an election, which uses secret ballots, to see if a majority of workers wants a union. However, the process can take several years as business owners and employees negotiate. The act would allow employees to form a union if more than 50 percent of a work force wanted one. The employees would fill out a card saying they want a union, and could bypass an election.
"Businesses are concerned that for the first time in 80 years, the playing field would be leveled in employees having a voice in their employment," Judd said. "If I were a business owner, I'd be concerned because right now the scale is tipped in my favor."
Judd says the federal bill would not take away any rights, but rather empower employees.
Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah is one of the most outspoken opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act.
"The bill would scrap our current system of private voting in secret-ballot elections and replace it with a forced card-check certification in which employees can be pressured by union organizers into signing union petitions, or union authorization cards at work, at home, in a bar or on the streets," the Utah Republican said on the Senate floor in June. "Union leaders boast that this change would lead to millions of new union members, but at what cost to workplace democracy?"
Wimmer says he has is "confident" the amendment will pass the Legislature with the two-thirds majority it needs to OK a constitutional amendment. It then would go to voters on the November 2010 ballot.
"This is going to pass with bipartisan and big support," he said. "But if it doesn't, I'll take it to the citizens and they can make it a statute change."
