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Battle heats up on union measure

Foes unleash pricey ad war

By Sean Lengell (Contact) | Sunday, September 7, 2008

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Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken is knocked as anti-worker.

Corporate America is mocked as being run by overpaid fat cats.

As organized labor and its Democratic allies push to change federal rules that would make it easier to unionize, they're squaring off with pro-business groups in one of the most aggressive and expensive ad wars of the election season.

The American Rights at Work group on Labor Day began a $5 million four-week nationwide cable-television ad campaign in support of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow unions to organize new locals if a majority of employees sign cards or petitions - bypassing the traditional secret-ballot method of organizing.

The ad depicts an actor representing a corporate executive on a seesaw with an announcer saying, "CEOs' salaries are getting fatter and fatter." The laughing chief executive's smile drops when a group of "workers" sit on the plank's opposite end, suspending him above the ground.

The group, which ran the ad in battleground states, says it may consider more ad buys later this year.

"When there is a difficulty to get a union in your workplace, that's a disadvantage for workers," said Josh Goldstein, a spokesman with the pro-union group. "This is more about the economy, it's more about health care, and it's more about the minimum wage than it is about the labor movement."

Both sides of the debate agree the "card-check measure," if passed, would dramatically enhance labor's ability to increase its membership. U.S. union membership has fallen from 35 percent of the work force in the mid-1950s to about 12 percent in 2007. Less than 8 percent of private-sector workers are in unions.

"The strength of labor in this country is a measurement of the success of our economy - it really is," Mr. Goldstein said. "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement."

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce TV ad in Minnesota portrays Mr. Franken's support of the card-check proposal as akin to denying workers' rights, saying that "taking away the private vote is just plain undemocratic."