
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 29, 1995                   TAG: 9511300009
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

HIGH COURT OKS UNION `SALTING'

Federal labor law protects paid union organizers who apply for or hold jobs with companies they seek to unionize, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

The unanimous ruling in a case from Minnesota breathed new life into a tactic, called ``salting,'' that labor unions use to sign up construction workers and others holding nonunion jobs.

``Can a worker be a company's `employee' ... if, at the same time, a union pays that worker to help the union organize the company?'' Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for the court. ``We agree with the National Labor Relations Board that the answer is `yes.'''

The decision reversed a federal appeals court ruling that said paid union organizers do not qualify for legal protection against an employer's discrimination based on union membership.

- Associated Press

by CNB