by Mike Hall, Jun 1, 2007

Public employees in New Hampshire now have the option to exercise their freedom to form a union when a majority of workers sign authorization cards saying they want to join a union. The state House of Representatives yesterday passed legislation giving public employees the sign-up option, and the bill, passed by the state Senate earlier this year, is on its way to the governor’s desk.

The bill is similar to the majority sign-up provisions for private-sector workers in the federal Employee Free Choice Act. Majority sign-up is much faster than the government-run balloting process and leaves less time for employers to harass and intimidate workers so they will back off from joining a union.

New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie says that in workplaces where the state’s public employees have organized into unions in the past,

there has really been an overwhelming number, a huge majority, of the workers who sign authorization cards, but they still have to go through the long process of the election, tying up resources and costing the state, even after the a big majority already made the decision to join.

Working families played key roles in winning the bill’s passage. First, they went to the polls last November and threw out the anti-worker majorities that had controlled the state Senate and House for years, and they elected Gov. John Lynch (D).

Next, union members from public employee unions, such as AFSCME and AFT-N.H., and other unions throughout the state contacted their lawmakers with postcards, phone calls and personal visits, urging them to pass the majority sign-up bill.

Lynch hasn’t said if he will sign the bill, but MacKenzie was due to meet with the governor this morning.

Similar bills have been approved this year in Massachusetts, Oregon and Vermont state Houses and are pending in the California, Minnesota and Rhode Island legislatures.  

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