| As safety violations continue, card check still has many opponents
by Brian Leubitz
Despite the deaths and very public injuries of farm workers over the past few years, farm labor is still very difficult to organize. There are many reasons for this, as you can imagine. Great distances, language barriers, and immigration issues are just some of those. In addition, because of these issues, management has great sway over labor. Management essentially has a thumb on the scale of an election process.
Card check wouldn't end these issues, but it could go a long way towards making labor relevant in farm work. Despite Jerry's veto of card check legislation, the issue won't go away quickly. However, the numbers from the recent LA Times/USC poll show that the unions may need to do a bit more work on messaging.
The poll shows that 42% support card check for farm workers, and 45% oppose. Now, those numbers should probably considered somewhat squishy, but not necessarily in the good way. After being read pro and con statements, support for card check fell to 39%.
Farm work is one of the more obvious positive cases for card check. It makes an unmanageable task possible, but hardly easy. Farm workers need the right to organize, and card check just levels the playing field somewhat. |
