Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO, expected to elected president of the lab or organization later this month, and a former president of the United Mine Workers, has his finger in the dike holding together this legislative initiative, but even he can see the dike is cracking. Asked yesterday whether the AFL-CIO could accept a labor law reform measure preserving management's right to insist on a secret ballot vote before a company is unionized, he said the "card check" provision of the pending measure "may or may not be" a key to union support for the final bill. Trumka said the AFL-CIO sees three provisions of the reform bill as "must haves" for organized labor: freedom of union organizers from management harassment; stiffened penalties for management violations, and tighter deadlines for concluding union contract negotiations.
The question now is whether anyone in either house of Congress is listening to him.
The question now is whether anyone in either house of Congress is listening to him.
