Aug. 16--Elect business-friendly candidates to Congress and defeat union-backed legislation, U.S. Chamber of Commerce officials urged people during a visit to Richmond yesterday.

Squarely in their crosshairs was a bill that would allow unions to organize workers without holding a union election. The so-called "card-check" legislation passed the House of Representatives, 241-185, last year but was stopped by a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

Glenn Spencer, director a U.S. chamber campaign to stop the legislation, warned a group at the Greater Richmond Chamber that Democratic victories in eight key Senate races this fall, including in Virginia, could provide unions the support they need to pass the legislation.

"Card check has a serious chance of passage in 2009," he said.

U.S. chamber officials acknowledged that former Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat who has a 20 percent lead in the polls, might win the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va. They urged businesspeople to pin Warner down on how he would vote on the legislation every chance they get.

Unions, which have endorsed Mark Warner, say the legislation, known as the Employee Free Choice Act, is needed because labor laws make it tough for workers to form unions without intimidation from employers. Passing the law is crucial to saving the middle class, they argue.

The legislation would allow unions to organize a company and call for collective bargaining once they obtained the signatures of a majority of the company's work force. It would take away the freedom of workers to privately vote for a union, open workers to intimidation by union supporters and destroy the ability of employers to make their case against unionization, Spencer said.

"What's more intimidating -- us talking to a worker in a parking lot or a boss bringing workers into a closed-door meeting and threatening their jobs?" asked Jim Leaman, president of the Virginia AFL-CIO.

Union efforts to organize the Smithfield Foods Inc.'s processing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., where the National Labor Relations Board and the federal courts held that workers had been intimidated by the company, is an example of the need for the legislation, Leaman said. "The process has to be streamlined."

Also in legislation is a provision that would require labor contract negotiations to go to binding arbitration if they are not successful in producing a contract after four months.

The arbitration provision is at least as offensive as the card-check requirement, said Marc Freedman, the U.S. chamber's director of labor-law policy.

The business community should be scared by the legislation, Freedman said. It will make union organizing easier and free up money for unions to elect friendly lawmakers and pursue their anti-business legislative goals, he said.

Contact Greg Edwards at (804) 649-6390 or gedwards@timesdispatch.com.

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