By WES SANDER

Capital Press

SACRAMENTO -- A bill involving "card check" unionizing for farmworkers has cleared the Legislature.

SB1474, by Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger after a 23-11 vote in of the Senate.

The bill would allow a union to represent workers based on signed cards if the state Agricultural Labor Relations Board finds that an employer has disrupted a secret-ballot election. Card-check voting would be certified as a fallback, if the union had already obtained signed cards from more than half an employer's workers.

Steinberg last year authored a bill that more directly allowed card-check unionizing as an alternative to the secret-ballot currently sanctioned by the state. The governor vetoed it.

The Senate passed a similar bill this year as a repeat of last year's on a party-line vote. In the Assembly, it was amended to place the new condition on card-check approval.

The bill would allow a union to represent an employer's workforce if the employer is shown to have disrupted a secret-ballot union election, and more than half an employer's workers have already signed cards in favor of unionizing.

Under card check, union representatives approach employees to obtain signatures on cards. Employers have complained that the system allows unions to coerce employees.

But labor interests have complained the secret-ballot process offers employers too much opportunity to coerce workers.

Several labor and worker-advocacy groups, including United Farm Workers, support the bill. Many agricultural and business groups, including the California Farm Bureau Federation and California Chamber of Commerce, oppose it.

Proponents argue that farmworkers need extra safeguards because of language barriers or the fear of immigration enforcement as they work to support families in their countries of origin.

Opponents say they can be improperly penalized if misconduct doesn't affect an election's outcome or doesn't constitute an unfair labor practice. Because the outcomes of card-check are not always clear -- employees may sign cards with the intent of triggering an election, or simply to stop the union's pestering -- a secret-ballot process is the best way to gauge employees' intent, opponents argue.