Brian Lyman

Montgomery Advertiser

The Alabama House of Representatives on Thursday narrowly rejected a measure that would put the state’s right to work law in the state Constitution, a part of the House Republican caucus' agenda.

The chamber voted 60 to 24 for the measure. The constitutional amendment needed 63 affirmative votes to pass. A number of Republicans were absent Thursday, and Democrats used a procedural motion requiring members to vote their own machines – and not those of others – to defeat the measure.

House Speaker Mike Hubbard, R-Auburn, said Republicans would bring the amendment back up on Tuesday.

"We simply didn’t have enough people in the chamber at the time," he said.

Alabama has had a right-to-work law since 1953. Right-to-work laws forbid making union membership a condition of employment. The amendment, sponsored by Rep. Arnold Mooney, R-Shelby County, would also prohibit employers from requiring workers “to abstain or refrain from membership in any labor union or labor organization” as a condition of employment.

“We need to maintain our right-to-work status to attract economic development projects, and this will be a very strong pro-business state,” Mooney said.

Supporters of the laws say it gives employees the right to decide whether or not to join unions and encourages economic development. In the House, proponents said it would burnish Alabama's image.

"I just think (the amendment) makes it stronger," Hubbard said. "We’re sending a real statement to the business community inside the state and outside the state that it is very important to us to remain a right to work state, and it’s so important to us we’re going to put it in the Constitution."

Opponents say the laws weaken unions and workers’ bargaining power over wages and benefits.

Democrats – who did not challenge the existing law when they controlled the Legislature – called the bill a “right-to-fire” law and questioned the need to put in the Constitution. House Minority Leader Craig Ford, D-Gadsden, said the union at the Goodyear plant in his home city played a significant role in saving the factory there in 2007.

“It seems like it’s a 100 percent anti-union bill,” he said. “I have said from day one there are some companies where unions are needed and there are some companies where a union is not needed.”

Rep. Berry Forte, D-Eufala, said he once participated in a strike where a company used the state’ right-to-work law to fire the striking union members and hire new ones.

“Who are you bringing this bill for?” Forte asked Mooney. “The Business Council of Alabama or the Chamber of Commerce?”

Mooney said he brought the legislation “to protect the citizens in the choice or how they work.”

Rep. Randall Shedd, R-Cullman, said the bill could help economic development.

“I know for a fact companies are looking for reasons to mark off states from their list of consideration,” he said. “I know friends in neighboring Tennessee were concerned about the impact it would have on future projects.”

But Rep. John Knight, D-Montgomery, said the state’s education system and living conditions harmed recruitment more than labor organization. “Unions aren’t the problem,” he said.

Alabama is the most unionized state in the South. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 190,000 Alabama workers – about 10.2 percent of the workforce – belonged to a union in 2015. 204,000 workers – 11 percent of the population – were represented by a union. Nationally, 11.1 percent of the workforce belonged to a union last year.

The numbers represented a decline from 2014, when 204,000 workers and 10.8 percent of the Alabama’s work force was unionized. Alabama AFL-CIO president Bren Riley said in a statement the amendment "doesn't change anything or change the way we unionize in Alabama."

"The legislature just wasted a whole morning debating a law that is already the law when they could have been working on the budgets or passing pay raises for teachers and state troopers," the statement said.