By Carl Weiser
Cincinatti Enquirer Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON - The battle to unionize Mason-based Cintas Corp. has reached the halls of Congress.

More than 90 Democrats earlier this week signed a letter to Cintas CEO Robert Kohlhepp saying they were "troubled" by the company's response to union organizing efforts. Some also had a news conference Wednesday saying the workers fighting for fair treatment and better pay deserved their support.

"Workers report that Cintas has mounted an extensive campaign aimed at dissuading employees from supporting the union through retaliatory firings, harassment, surveillance and a string of mandatory meetings, videos and letters," reads the letter written by U.S. Reps. Rosa DeLaura, D-Conn., and George Miller, D-Calif.

The company said the two unions seeking to organize Cintas' 17,000 hourly workers - Teamsters and the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, also known as UNITE - had misled the Democrats.

"Our dispute with these unions is not about unionization," Kohlhepp responded in a statement. "Rather, this is about how people are unionized."

The groups are trying to unionize the company using a procedure called "card checks." If the unions can get a company to agree, they would need a majority of employees to sign cards endorsing union representation.

The company prefers to see an election run by the National Labor Relations Board. Unions still have to show that at least 30 percent of eligible employees are interested in a union.

Last year the federal agency ran 2,627 elections. Unions won 56 percent of them, according to NLRB spokeswoman Patricia Gilbert. But the NLRB does not police card checks. The company considers such open-ended card drives to be unregulated, unmonitored, and fraught with union abuses.

"We still believe that the election process is the fairest, most democratic way for employees to make their choice," Cintas spokesman Wade Gates said. "We're not going to take away our employees' right to a vote. It's un-American."

Rafael Gely, a University of Cincinnati law professor, said unions have more success with card checks.

Cintas' refusal to agree to one is "pretty standard," he said. "There are consultants who will tell employers never to sign a card-check agreement."

But the AFL-CIO's organizing director, Stewart Acuff, said card checks are becoming more common. They've been used recently with Freightliner trucks in North Carolina, a Brylane women's wear distribution center in Indianapolis, and a hospital system in California.

He said the standard union election has become tilted toward the employer and too risky for workers, who are often facing firings or company threats to close a facility in the face of a union drive.

"Workers in America have lost the freedom to form unions. That doesn't exist," he said. "All UNITE is doing is saying, let's have a process free of intimidation and coercion."

The only Tristate legislator to sign the letter was Rep. Baron Hill, D-Seymour, Ind.