Polling on ‘card-check’ has its pitfalls

It is the subject of multimillion-dollar pressure campaigns in Washington, but few Americans actually have solid feelings about the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), pollsters say.

That’s because the legislation — also known as “card-check” — is notoriously difficult to adequately present to poll respondents. Pollsters say the issue, more so than most others, is overly sensitive to the way they word their questions.

{mosads}”It’s one of the more complex issues that we’ve ever faced as pollsters,” Frank Newport, the managing editor of The Gallup Poll, told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor. “The public is unclear with the complexities of the legislation.

“This has not been a general voter fight,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who has conducted EFCA polls and handled some of President Obama’s polling during the campaign. “It’s an insider fight for the Congress that [advocacy groups on both sides] want to make you think is being fought out among the average Joe.”

That means poll results can change dramatically based on what details are given to survey respondents. And the ability to manipulate public opinion can work to both sides’ advantage as they work to coax key lawmakers with their own surveys.

Business interests, which have spent millions to defeat the legislation, need to emphasize the secret-ballot angle as well as the binding arbitration provision to be successful, Newport said. Labor unions, on the other hand, need to focus on the increased ease by which the legislation would permit unions to form.

“Public opinion is still very much malleable on this issue,” Newport said. “It’s really going to be open to which side can get their points across.”

If a pollster chooses to mention a provision in the bill that would allow unions to form after half the employees have signed a card and without a secret-ballot election, respondents are much more likely to oppose the legislation.

A CBS News/New York Times survey taken in mid-March showed 38 percent of Americans supported “making it easier for people to form a labor union by allowing them to publicly sign a card, even if that might eliminate a secret ballot.” More, 45 percent, opposed that notion.

“Whenever we’ve tested it and the voters are aware they have to sign a card, immediately they get it,” said John McLaughlin, the Republican pollster who has conducted surveys for the anti-EFCA Coalition for a Democratic Workplace. “Whether it’s management or labor, they don’t like being coerced.”

But skip the mention of a secret ballot and the pro-EFCA side looks like the winner: A Gallup poll taken at the same time as the CBS/New York Times poll showed 53 percent of Americans favor “a new law that would make it easier for labor unions to organize workers,” while 39 percent are opposed.

“In some ways, it is a race by each side to message it the way they want to,” said Andrew Myers, a Democratic pollster who has tested EFCA messages for clients who favor the legislation.

{mosads}Rob Autry, a Republican pollster who has conducted his own surveys for those opposed to EFCA, said the issue is more complicated than simply labeling it as an opportunity to deprive workers of a secret ballot.

“This isn’t a single issue. EFCA has different components to it,” Autry said, citing binding arbitration and new collective bargaining rules alongside the card-check aspect. “What I’ve seen work most effectively is just focusing the attention on what it means to the worker,” Autry added.

“Voters actually are often contradictory in a single poll. It’s true that people believe it should be easier to unionize,” said Anzalone. “At the same time, the majority of people believe a secret ballot is important. So you have a kind of tension between those two things.”

Pollsters for the two parties also disagree as to whether the legislation has the capacity to influence elections. Democrats point to Colorado, where business interests spent millions hammering then-Rep. Mark Udall (D) over the issue, efforts that barely scratched him on his way to a win.

“I don’t see this as a winner for either side in the end … [I]t’s more of an insider debate,” Myers said. “I don’t think I have ever seen Democrats get punished for standing up for workers and I doubt I ever will.”

But Republicans say by framing the debate in the proper way, they can benefit if the legislation ever hits the House or Senate floor.

The secret ballot and binding arbitration “are things that resonate easily with voters and motivates them,” Autry said. “This has the potential to move votes. To a large degree, [EFCA] got overshadowed in the 2008 elections because there was so much else going on.”

But despite the lack of a scheduled debate in either chamber, the issue is slowly creeping into voters’ consciousness. “There’s a growing awareness that there’s something out there,” McLaughlin said.