A well-funded anti-union group continues to target U.S. Senate
candidate Jeff Merkley because of his strong ties to the union movement
and his support for labor’s top priority in Congress, the
Employee Free Choice Act.
The group, the Employee
Freedom Action Committee, has begun running anti-Merkley ads
on Portland area television stations, and dogging the candidate
at campaign events around the state with a costumed “Grim
Reaper,” holding a placard warning of the death of democracy.
Employee Freedom Action Committee and a related group, Center for
Union Facts, were set up by corporate lobbyist Rick Berman, whose
trademark is setting up deceptively named front groups.
“These people make absolutely no sense,” said Merkley
spokesperson Matt Canter. “By giving workers the right to
organize and enabling better paying jobs with better benefits, we
are strengthening America’s democracy,” Canter said,
not “killing” it.
The Employee Free Choice Act would make it easier for nonunion workers
to join a union and get a first union contract, and would penalize
employers who surveil, interrogate, discipline or terminate employees
for supporting a union drive.
Business opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act have tried to
discredit the bill by focusing on one aspect — it would replace
the current process of workplace elections with a method for automatic
union recognition once the majority of workers sign cards in support
of union representation. Thus the Employee Freedom Action Committee
says the bill would “strip workers of their right to a government-supervised
private ballot vote.”
The group attacked Merkley in May with print ads in several of
the state’s largest newspapers. In July and August it was
back with a television
ad.
“Some union bosses and their politician friends want to effectively
do away with privacy when it comes to voting on joining a union,”
says a voiceover accompanied by ominous music and images. “Employees
could be exposed to intimidation at work and at home. So contact
Jeff Merkley and ask him this one simple question: Shouldn’t
your vote still be private?”
Berman’s groups have run print and television ads bashing
unions for several years, but only this year did they begin to run
candidate-specific ads targeting states that have competitive congressional
races. The ads have run in eight states, in each case against Democratic
congressional candidates who support the Employee Free Choice Act.
One ad, which aired in Maine and Minnesota, uses actor Vince Curatola,
who played “Johnny Sack” in the HBO series The Sopranos.
Playing to the union-Mafia stereotype, Curatola replaces a candidate
who supports “the secret ballot for union elections”
with one who doesn’t. “Problem solved,” says Curatola
in
the ad. Those ads are run by a related group calling itself
the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace.
Berman’s groups don’t disclose their supporters, but
the Coalition
for a Democratic Workplace does — giving a glimpse at
who will be lining up to oppose the Employee Free Choice Act when
it comes up again. The group’s Web site lists 488 groups in
support: industry associations, state and local chambers of commerce,
and chapters of Associated Builders & Contractors, an open shop
contractors organization.
In Oregon, besides the TV ads, Merkley has been hounded at his campaign
events by a tall “Grim Reaper” wearing the scary mask
from the movie The Scream. “Death,” accompanied by a
man with a video camera, carries a picket sign bearing a Merkley
campaign logo and slogans like “Merkley kills democracy.”
The encounters then show up on a Web site that describes itself
as the joint blog of the Employee Freedom Action Committee and the
Center for Union Facts.
They know where to find Merkley because he’s been campaigning
in a “100 Towns for Change” tour, announcing his events
in advance. Merkley’s opponent, incumbent U.S. Senator Gordon
Smith, has not been similarly accessible.
Publicly, Berman and his groups’ spokesperson Tim Miller have
maintained that they are neither pro- nor anti- union, just concerned
that workers’ rights be protected. But that was contradicted
by the late July discovery of court documents that show Berman was
a key adviser to Smithfield Foods, a North Carolina pork processor
that has waged a decade-long battle against a union campaign by
the United Food and Commercial Workers.
On July 31, the independent union-supported group American Rights
at Work posted documents on its Web site which showed that Berman
did work for Smithfield, and was offered a high-priced retainer
through his for-profit firm, Berman and Company. Berman was able
to get the court to seal the documents, and threatened American
Rights at Work with legal action if they didn’t remove them
from their site. They took the documents off, but a section detailing
what is known about Berman and his groups remains on the site, www.american-rightsatwork.org.
