Attorney General will fight to defend Worker Freedom Act

A sold out crowd of nearly 275 people jammed the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 48 hall Jan. 29 for the 14th annual Oregon Labor Law Conference.

The daylong event, coordinated by Norm Malbin, general counsel for IBEW Local 48, was co-sponsored by the Oregon AFL-CIO, Oregon State and Columbia-Pacific Building and Construction Trades Councils, Northwest Oregon Labor Council, the Labor Education and Research Center at the University of Oregon, and the Center for Worker Rights.

The conference is geared for union officers and representatives. Workshops focused on how to prepare for arbitrations, creative organizing strategies, grievance mediation, recordkeeping, updates on the Family Medical Leave Act, and a class on how to handle employers who discipline employees for off-duty misconduct.

Speakers included Oregon Attorney General John Kroger; Dr. John Lund, deputy assistant secretary for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Labor-Management Programs; R. Bruce Edgington, district director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Labor-Management Standards; Richard Ahearn, regional director of the National Labor Relations Board; Darrell Clark, a commissioner with the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, college professors, several labor attorneys, and one management attorney, who gave an update on recent employment law court decisions.

Kroger told a luncheon audience that the AG’s office will do everything in its power to defend the State of Oregon against a lawsuit filed by Associated Oregon Industries (AOI) and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that would rescind the Worker Freedom Act from becoming law.

Senate Bill 519 — the Worker Freedom Act — was labor’s top priority bill at the Oregon Legislature last session. The new law prevents employers from punishing workers who opt-out of mandatory meetings on topics such as politics, religion and union organizing.

Oregon is the first state to pass such a law. It was to take affect Jan. 1.

The AOI lawsuit specifies Laborers Local 296 and Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian as defendants.

AOI and the U.S. Chamber claim SB 519 violates federal law and the First Amendment.

“We’ve put our very best lawyers on the case,” Kroger said, “and we’re going to fight it extremely hard.”

Kroger said because of its national importance, his office is working closely with attorneys at the national AFL-CIO, not only to coordinate strategy on defending the statute, but also to work on potential modifications in the next legislative session to make it that much more secure from future challenges in the courts.

“I feel very confident that we’re going to win this case,” Kroger said.

In the morning plenary session, management attorney Rick Liebman of Barran Liebman LLP said that in his view, the Worker Freedom Act preempts the National Labor Relations Act.

“A lot of money is being poured into this lawsuit by both sides,” Liebman said, further predicting that the case will wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court. 

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