David Sanders: Pryor's shift on 'card check'

Sen. Mark Pryor, once a full-throated backer of the so-called "Employee Free Choice Act," is now striking a more conciliatory tone.

The legislation, better known as "card check," is widely viewed as organized labor's quick fix to the long-term trend of declining union rolls. Labor leaders argue that the 40-day period between calling an election to form a union and the actual secret-ballot vote, which currently is required by law, is outdated and creates an undue burden on those who want to organize.

Under card check, both the waiting period and the secret-ballot election would be done away with and instead, pro-Labor forces would simply be required to obtain a majority of employees' signatures on union authorization cards to form a union.

Both large and small business leaders who oppose card check contend that union leaders have had a hard time demonstrating their worth in recent years. They also believe overturning the secret ballot vote potentially could subject workers to open intimidation. They claim that if union officials are given no limitations as to the time or place in which they can lobby workers to sign authorization cards, there is a real likelihood that there will be unionization by coercion at businesses across the country.

As it stands, both sides are heading for a fight when the new president and Congress begin their work next month. President-elect Barack Obama supports card check, as do the Democratic majorities in both the U.S. House and Senate.

The usually soft-spoken junior senator angered many in the Arkansas business community last spring when he forcefully claimed that those in the state Chamber of Commerce, as well as other business leaders who lobbied him against card check, were simply doing the bidding of their leadership in Washington.

But when I interviewed Sen. Pryor last week on my television program, gone was the vitriol, which had angered so many. Instead, Pryor mollified his position. When asked if he would again line up as a co-sponsor of the legislation, he indicated he wouldn't.

In fact, he attempted to alleviate concerns that the bill would be on the fast track that union leaders had hoped for in the new Congress. He predicted that a President Obama wouldn't push the measure in the first six months of his administration and that he might wait until 2010 to bring it up.

"That bill has really never had the chance to go through committee, be amended and have floor debate ... in the Senate," he cautioned. As a result of that process, he predicted that the bill would change in committee hearings and that any Senate bill would look much different than the House bill.

Sen. Pryor's preference is now to find common ground between business and Labor. He said he'd met with both groups and, without providing many details, he added that he now supports amendments aimed at bridging the wide gap between the two.

In recent weeks, Sen. Pryor and his fellow Arkansas Democrat, Sen. Blanche Lincoln, have become targets in the battle over card check. To date, Sen. Pryor is the one of the two who has shifted publicly on the issue. Sen. Lincoln has remained tight-lipped as to whether she will support the legislation or efforts to weaken the House bill.

It's hard to judge his motives, but some even some from within his party believe that Sen. Pryor's once-strong support for card check was a either a tip of the hat to the Democratic leadership or an effort to fend off a potential primary challenge. Others feel Arkansas' junior senator is simply being true to form as one of the Senate's more moderate and conciliatory voices.

David Sanders writes twice weekly for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock and is a host of the Arkansas Education Television Network's "Unconventional Wisdom." His e-mail address is DavidJSanders@aol.com.