CARSON CITY -- Union leaders swore Tuesday that they have no intention of gutting the state's right-to-work law with a seemingly simple bill that passed the Assembly unanimously.
Danny Thompson, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO, said all Assembly Bill 69 does is allow a union to request reasonable reimbursement when it represents nonunion employees in disputes with their employers.
Advertisement
"The person who is aggrieved has to come to you and ask for your help," Thompson told the Senate Commerce and Labor Committee. "Nothing is mandatory."
A representative of organized labor agreed.
"The bill clearly states the employee must come to us for representation if he is going to be charged," said Thomas Morley, a lobbyist for Laborers Local 872 in Las Vegas.
But Greg Mourad, a lobbyist for the National Right to Work Committee, called the bill a "sabotage" of the state's nearly 60-year-old right-to-work law.
That law specifies that employees cannot be forced to join unions.
While federal laws allow employees to have their own counsel present to help them with grievances, Mourad said the same laws do not require employers to meet with them.
However, laws require employers to meet with union representatives, he added.
"Without union participation there is no arbitration, there is no appeal process," Mourad said.
Senate Commerce and Labor Committee Chairman Randolph Townsend, R-Reno, took no immediate vote on the bill. AB69 must be approved by Friday or it is dead for the rest of the 2005 Legislature.
Townsend noted after the hearing that his committee has 18 bills to consider and that it would try to get to AB69.
State Sen. Maggie Carlton, D-Las Vegas, challenged Mourad's contentions that employees need union assistance to handle grievances with their employers.
"You are seeing the boogeyman behind the door when there is no boogeyman," said Carlton, who is active in the Culinary union. "Employees have a choice to walk into the manager's office. They can have a union steward with them or not. They can do whatever they want."
The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, the Nevada Manufacturers Association and other business groups testified briefly in opposition to the bill.
