Sizemore files signatures to put 'paycheck deception' back on ballot

Bill Sizemore, the anti-union leader of Oregon Taxpayers United, submitted 111,000 signatures with the State Elections Division on an initiative that - if passed by voters - would restrict unions from participating in the political process.

He needs 89,048 valid signatures from registered voters to qualify for the November ballot.

The initiative is a constitutional amendment that would require union locals to obtain annual written authorization from each of their members before taking sides in an election or even representing their interests at the Legislature, explained Oregon AFL-CIO President Tim Nesbitt.

The initiative is modeled after California's Proposition 226, which was defeated in June 1998 by a margin of 53 to 47 percent. The California campaign against Prop. 226 was bolstered by an extraordinary turnout of union household voters.

"We will do the same in Oregon in 2000," Nesbitt proclaimed.

This is Sizemore's second run at trying to silence organized labor (his loudest opposition in the political arena). In 1998 voters narrowly rejected Ballot Measure 59, which would have prohibited dues checkoff for public employee unions. The initiative also would have prohibited publication of the Voters' Pamphlet.

After the loss, Sizemore said in a fundraising letter, "We are going to put Measure 59 back on the ballot, with a couple of minor changes in drafting, and make the public employees unions fight it all over again."

To help combat the new "paycheck deception" initiative, the state labor federation hired April Rebollo of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 as a political organizer. Her job will be to register more union members and their family members to vote. The AFL-CIO's goal is to turn out enough union household voters to become 25 percent of the total votes cast by the electorate in Oregon.

On Saturday, Feb. 26, the Oregon AFL-CIO will hold its first-ever "Labor's Voice" political issues conference in Salem to review the results of a recent issues survey and to discuss its "fight-fire-with-fire" agenda.

As part of that agenda, Nesbitt recently filed a draft initiative that would require the state to certify that all non-food products it purchases have been produced in accordance with core labor standards, such as no child labor and in compliance with all wage, safety and health laws of the country of its origin.