September 21, 2007 Volume 108 Number 18

Firefighters use new card-check law to secure union

In August, a group of eight employees at Newport Fire & Rescue became the first in Oregon to make use of a new state law that requires public employers to recognize a union based on “card check.”

Once the Oregon Employment Relations Board determines the appropriate definition of the bargaining unit, a new union, the Newport Professional Fire Fighters Association, will be recognized. The group would be an affiliate of the International Association of Fire Fighters and its Oregon affiliate, the Oregon State Fire Fighters Council.

The new law, passed by the Oregon Legislature earlier this year, makes it easier for public employees to unionize; when a majority of workers in a given workplace sign that they want to belong to a union, that union gets automatic recognition. The national labor movement has been pushing Congress to pass a similar law to cover private- sector workers.