by Julia Rosen [courtesy of Working Californians blogs]

The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the Bush administration and national business groups, challenging a CA law that bans the use of state funds to "deter" their employees from joining a union. LAT:

The union-backed measure was approved by the state Legislature and signed into law by then-Gov. Gray Davis in 2000. Since then, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been attacking the law in the federal courts. Its lawyers say the measure conflicts with the "level playing field" set by federal labor law. As the Chamber sees it, union officials and management deserve the same rights to try to persuade their workers to vote for or against a union.

The California law "is part of a concerted effort to spur union organizing by silencing anti-union employer speech," the Chamber's lawyers said in their appeal to the Supreme Court. They said the law's impact would fall most heavily in industries such as healthcare, where the state subsidizes care for elderly and low-income persons.

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