On Nov. 20, anti-union attorney Jill Gibson turned in the first batch of 1,432 signatures on a new Oregon ballot measure, aimed at November 2016, that would eliminate any requirement for public employees to pay union dues or “fair share” fees to cover the costs of union representation.
Gibson submitted four other versions of the same measure in March, but withdrew them in April and October after she determined that the measures would do poorly among voters because of the ballot title that the state attorney general’s office assigned to them. A ballot title is the official summary of a measure that appears on printed ballots. The ballot titles assigned to Odell’s measures were identical: “Non-union public employees may benefit from union bargaining without sharing representation costs; modifies representation obligations.” Odell challenged those ballot titles, but the Oregon Supreme Court upheld them.
Like the other versions, the newest version of Odell’s Public Employee Choice Act attempts to use technicalities to dodge the union “free rider” argument. Union supporters argue, with justification, that workers covered by a union contract should pay at least the cost of negotiating and administering the contract, even if they don’t want to be represented by the union. Odell’s measure would require public employees who want to be in the union to annually indicate in writing that they choose to join and be represented by a labor organization. All others would be labelled “independent” public employees, who in theory wouldn’t be covered by the union contract and therefore shouldn’t have to pay for it. Public employers would be prohibited from basing independent employees’ wages, benefits, and other employment terms on the union contract; instead, they would have to make separate terms for each independent employee.
