As the New York State legislative session winds down, the State Assembly today passed a bill that prohibits private employers receiving state contracts or grants from using that money to oppose union organizing campaigns. The bill has been strongly supported by unions and labor activists---especially in the health care sector where a major organizing push is under way---and has been agreed to by the State Senate and Governor Pataki. Business groups have decried the bill as a record keeping nightmare and an infringement on their First Amendment Rights, but unions have pointed out that state money should not be going to finance employers? anti-union agendas.
See SHAILA K. DEWAN, The New York Times, June 26, 2002