Not table salt or Epsom salts, but union salts -- union organizers who get hired by companies with the purpose of organizing the businesses.

Proposed legislation that employer groups are pushing in Congress seeks more employer control over their job sites by relaxing a federal labor law to allow business leaders more leeway in deciding to hire or fire a union salt. Business advocates say union salts are disruptive to job sites.

"They (workers) have every right to pursue organizing in the workplace," said Anita Drummond, director of legal and regulatory affairs of the Associated Builders and Contractors Inc., a group that is pushing for legislation to stop the practice. "But instead of organizing, there's been more of a focus on disrupting the workplace, and therefore the employer becomes less competitive."

Drummond recently testified before the House Small Business Committee's Subcommittee on Workforce, Empowerment and Government Programs on behalf of the legislation titled the Truth in Employment Act. The bill would change the National Labor Relations Act, which currently protects the rights of all workers to organize and prohibits companies from discriminating on the basis of union affiliation.

She said she is optimistic the bill will make it out of the committee and face a congressional vote.

However, Kelly Ross, legislative representative for the AFL-CIO, said similar legislation has been brought up almost every year since a U.S. Supreme Court decision 10 years ago that clarifies that employers can't discriminate against a worker because of his or her union affiliation. Congress has never acted on those proposed bills.

"This is a way for workers to form unions, and if this bill were passed, it would make it very difficult, if not impossible, for workers to form unions," Ross said.

Ross said salting has long been used by unions targeting a variety of industries, often including the construction industry.

"The reason why in construction it's particularly important is because it's very difficult for employees to be able to communicate with anybody off site," Ross said. "If it weren't so ridiculously difficult, under the current laws, for workers to get together to form unions, it wouldn't be as necessary as it is because the laws are stacked against workers."

However, Drummond said the nation's labor laws are stacked against companies. She said the proposed law will clarify what an employer can and can't do when a union salt seeks a job. Right now, she said, the law isn't clear about whether an employer can choose not to hire or fire a worker who is unproductive or counterproductive when that worker is affiliated with a union.

"The employer should have some rights to hire a qualified applicant," Drummond said. "In the current law the line is very fuzzy. The law gives deference to the fact that merely because they (the candidates) are union affiliated they (employers) should give deference to them to protect their organizing activities."

Federal labor laws specify that workers cannot use company time for organizing activities.

Ross disagreed with Drummond's assessment that the current labor laws make it difficult for employers to operate without disruption from unproductive or counterproductive workers.

"If an employee is misbehaving, an employer can establish rules to stop that," Ross said. "If they're not qualified for the job, you don't have to hire them."

Drummond said that although companies have the ability to hire and fire workers who are unproductive or counterproductive, companies sometimes fear firing union salts because often unions will then file unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board.

She said if the NLRB finds merit in a union's charges, the NLRB will take upon itself the cost of adjudicating the case. She said that whether a company wins a dispute or not, the company must bear the legal costs of adjudicating a case before an NLRB administrative law judge. Also the unfair labor practice charges make the company look bad, she said.

Small businesses are hurt the most by union salting, she said.

"The union walks away in the sense they don't have the legal fees, but the small employer faces large legal fees," Drummond said.

Kent Wong, director of the University of California, Los Angeles Center for Labor Research and Education, said many companies screen out workers who may have union sympathies. He also said employers have the right to make their message about unions clear to workers.

"Many companies go to great means to try to intimidate or advise their workers against supporting the union," Wong said.

He also disagreed with Drummond's assessment that labor laws are stacked in favor of employees.

"I think it's rather ironic these are the accusations management is making, when in fact union density is quite low nationally," Wong said. "If the law was so weighted in favor of unions, then we wouldn't have the situation we face today with a significant decline in union density across the country."

Wong said the proposed law is unclear on exactly how companies would determine whether a person is affiliated with a union.

"It would be difficult to enforce because there's a lot of gray areas in relation to people's disposition to supporting unions or not," Wong said. "Let's say such a law is enacted. No. 1, how could you really prove whether someone is a salt or not? How could you ensure the company is not unfairly discriminating against people because of their views?"

Frank Hawk, senior representative of the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters, said the proposed law would make it easy for companies to discriminate against workers based on other characteristics.

"I think this opens up a long line of discrimination," Hawk said. "This could be used against minorities, age -- now we're giving the contractor a tool to discriminate with.

'This opens up the door to, 'Have you ever spoken to a union organizer before?' This is too Big Brother for me. Someone in the trades has more than likely been in contact with a union organizer somewhere."

Hawk said locally the union does use salting from time to time as one organizing tool, but that the union isn't currently using salts in its organizing drives.

"Right now I don't have any of that going on," Hawk said. "Not to say I won't have tomorrow."

Steve Holloway, executive vice president of the Associated General Contractors Las Vegas Chapter, said he has seen the practice used locally within the construction industry.

"Usually you don't see too much of it until the unions are in their big organizing drives," Holloway said. "They seem to come every few years. Salts are used more to disrupt the work and the project. You're using them to put pressure on the employer himself to sign up with the unions."

He said the use of salts helps to pressure companies to agree to go union, because unlike other types of companies, the National Labor Relations Act allows leaders of construction companies to agree to become unionized without a vote of their employees.

"You don't need to have an election in the construction industry; you could force the employer to simply sign with the unions," Holloway said. "That's one of the ways they use salts because the law allows it."

He said in Las Vegas that has caused union and non-union companies to become pigeon-holed into limited type of jobs they can work on. He said companies that are unionized often do work on casinos and public works projects while non-union companies mostly work in residential and light commercial construction. The project segmentation makes it difficult for companies to diversify the types of business they do, Holloway said.

Alana Roberts covers courts and labor relations for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. She can be reached by e-mail at alanar@lasvegassun.com or at (702) 259-4059.