An anti-union group is spending big money attacking Kay Hagan. 

The Employee Freedom Action Committee is spending $1 million on online ads and mailings that criticize Hagan, according to spokesman Tim Miller. It also ran a full-page ad in the N&O on Sept. 30.

The group is attacking her support for legislation that would make it easier for unions to organize. It's also spending $2 million for a TV ad featuring former Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern criticizing the legislation, Jim Morrill reports.

The ad is running in North Carolina and a half-dozen other states.

The committee is affiliated with The Center for Union Facts. It opposes the legislation, which would allow workers to unionize by signing cards instead of through a secret-ballot election.

"Kay supports it as a way to level the playing field for working families," said Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan. "This bill simply allows the workers, not the employers, to decide which method to use, and stiffens penalties for intimidation."

A builders' group sponsoring robocalls against Kay Hagan is fighting a bill making it easier to unionize.

The Associated Builders and Contractors Free Enterprise Alliance, a Washington-based contractors lobbying association, paid for automated calls to North Carolina residents criticizing the Democratic Senate candidate's record on spending.

The calls are ostensibly issue-oriented, asking listeners to call Hagan about state spending.

Chris Singerling, director of political affairs for the alliance, said that "fiscal restraint at all levels of government" is a key issue for the commercial and industrial contractors in its membership.

At the national level, the group is also concerned about the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier to unionize companies by allowing a "card-check" system rather than a private ballot.

Singerling argued that would make it easier for pro-union employees to pressure coworkers.

"It's absolutely un-American," he said. "You can go and vote for your elected officials on Election Day privately, and no one would know how you voted. But when it comes to your own job, you wouldn't have that right."

The card-check bill passed the House in 2007 but failed narrowly in the Senate.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole voted against the bill, while Hagan told the News & Record's editorial board that she would look on the idea "favorably" but stopped short of a full-throated endorsement.

Update: Hagan spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan said that she supports the bill as a way to "level the playing field for working families."

"Right now, employees can unionize by either a secret ballot or a card check, but the employer is essentially allowed to decide which method will be officially recognized," she wrote in an e-mail to Dome. "This bill simply allows the workers, not the employers, to decide which method to use, and stiffens penalties for intimidation."

Pat McCrory took aim at unions Tuesday.

The Republican gubernatorial candidate made several references to labor unions during a debate on WTVD that left no doubt of a rift between McCrory and a group representing state workers.

The State Employees Association of North Carolina endorsed McCrory's Democratic rival, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, in late July.

The Service Employees International Union, which is affiliated with SEANC, has given hundreds of thousands of dollars to a 527 group that is running ads attacking McCrory's record this year.

McCrory complained about the ads twice during the debate, saying they were taking his remarks out of context and were funded by "national Washington group and labor unions and other groups from throughout the country."

"The 30-second TV ads, which now attack me, by this Washington labor group are saying that I'm opposed to free two-year college tuition, and therefore I'm against students, I'm against kids," he added later.

After Perdue mentioned her endorsements by law enforcement groups during a discussion on the death penalty, McCrory took aim at them as well.

"This has nothing to do with endorsements by quasi-labor unions," he said.

During the Democratic primary, Perdue was endorsed by the N.C. Troopers Association, the N.C. Police Benevolent Association and the N.C. Sheriff Police Alliance.

Jack Hawke says outside ads are a new ballgame.

The longtime Republican campaign consultant says he's had to learn new tactics to respond to third-party ads from so-called 527 organizations for gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory. He called them an "unintended consequence" of campaign finance reform.

"It's put a whole new wrinkle in politics," he said. "All of a sudden you've got outside groups making allegations, while the candidate can say 'Oh, I don't know anything about that, I had nothing to do with it,' while they're in the back room cheering."

As a former chairman of the state Republican Party, Hawke approved ads attacking Democratic candidates, but he said they were more transparent than those run by 527 groups such as the Alliance for North Carolina.

"If the party is giving the money and running the ad, we know what their motive is," he said. "The different labor unions have poured probably millions of dollars in to this state in recent years. ... Is the goal to do away with the right-to-work state? Is the goal to be able to have state employees go into collective bargaining? What is the goal?"

In addition, he said that party ads were more closely tied to the candidate, making it harder to do a misleading negative attack without potential of a backlash.

"It can hurt your candidate, too," he said. "When he's on the ballot up there, he's under the label Republican."  

"I'm an old man," Hawke joked, "and I've got to learn a new playbook." 

Two labor groups recently donated to Majority Action.

The Service Employees International Union's Political Education and Action Fund gave $200,000 in May, the SEIU's NYS Political Action Fund gave $150,000 in June and the United Food and Commercial Workers Union gave $100,000 in June.

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole argued that the donations are being used by Majority Action — and by extension, the Kay Hagan campaign — to pay for issue ads attacking Dole.

"Her campaign is in the pocket of Big Labor," argued Dole spokesman Hogan Gidley.

But Bill Buck, executive director of Majority Action, said that there was no direct tie between the two unions and the Dole ads.

"They have contributed to Majority Action, but they can't make donations that are tied to an ad," he said.

The Hagan campaign said they have no connection to the Majority Action ads. 

Mark McCullough, a spokesman for the SEIU, also disputed Dole's attempt to link a visit by the Democrat to the AFL-CIO's annual executive meeting in Chicago Monday to the Majority Action ad.

He noted that the SEIU and the UFCW are members of the Change to Win Federation, which was created in 2005 as an alternative to the AFL-CIO coalition.

One of the nation's largest unions will target North Carolina.

In a conference call with reporters, secretary-treasurer Anna Burger said the Service Employees International Union will assist the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and one of the gubernatorial candidates.

"Our members are incredibly excited about the electoral process," Burger said, according to a New York Times story. "We expect to be the most aggressive union on the ground and on the air across the country."

The union has set aside $75 million for the election for staff and advertising on radio, television and the Internet. Members will also participate in canvassing, phone banking and voter registration.

SEIU spent money on behalf of Republican gubernatorial candidate Patrick Ballantine in 2004, but neither it nor any other union has campaigned for a presidential candidate in North Carolina in recent memory since the state has been a reliable red state since 1980.

The State Employees Association of North Carolina recently affiliated with SEIU.

Correction: SEIU has not made an endorsement in the governor's race, a spokesman says.

Will Smithfield hams get pulled from the shelves? 

The Washington, D.C., City Council today will talk about whether to ask area supermarkets to stop stocking bacon, ham and other foods from a North Carolina company that some say mistreats its workers.

Eight members of the 13-member council plan to introduce a Sense of the Council resolution accusing Smithfield Foods of creating an environment of “intimidation and fear for workers who desperately want a voice on the job” at its slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant in Tar Heel, N.C., Barb Barrett reports.

The City Council resolution will be referred to committee, which will later hold a hearing before casting a vote.

The resolution is part of a continuing public relations effort by the United Food and Commercial Workers union to criticize Smithfield. The union has been trying to organize the plant in Tar Heel for years and has been publicizing worker injuries and what it calls intimidation practices against workers there.

A similar resolution passed last fall in Prince George's County, Md., a Washington suburb. The union also has launched a $200,000 advertising campaign against Smithfield with ads on area buses and in the subway.

Smithfield defends its record and says it is the union, not the company, that has intimidated workers.

The company also owns a meat-packing plant in nearby Landover, Md., which is unionized.

John C. Brooks thinks unions could use a boost in North Carolina.

The candidate for the Democratic nomination for labor commissioner said that he has long supported granting the state's public workers the right to collective bargaining, and he thinks unions could help other workers as well.

"It saddens me that this is such an anti-union state," he said.

Although his opponent, Mary Fant Donnan, has the backing of two of the state's largest unions, Brooks has sounded much more labor-friendly themes in his campaign, saying he would once again be the most progressive labor commissioner in history.

He argued that the lack of strong public unions is hurting workers across the state.

As an example, Brooks noted that state institutions such as UNC-Chapel Hill have outsourced some housekeeping jobs in part because there is no union to oppose the practice. The result is that the new workers do not have access to the state retirement system, have lower wages and poorer benefits.

"These people work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year," he said, "but they get less than the least benefits we pay anybody else on the state payroll."

Smithfield Packing accused a union of "giving consumers false information" with an advertising campaign launched today in the Washington, D.C., region against the pork giant.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union and its Smithfield Justice Campaign is putting banner ads in the subway and on city buses, and also plans to run television and radio ads in Washington and nearby Prince George's County, Md.

The ads accuse Smithfield of abusing workers at its plant in Tar Heel, N.C., which also is where UFCW has been trying to organize workers, Barb Barrett reports.

Smithfield spokeswoman Dennis Pittman said in a release today that the union should allow a secret-ballot vote — Smithfield's preferred voting method — for workers if it wants a union.

"Smithfield is not anti-union," the company release said, adding that 67 percent of its employees corporate-wide are covered by collective bargaining agreements.

"These tactics can only hurt the employees who work there," Pittman said of the ads. "We call on the UFCW to stop its pressure campaign."

Mary Fant Donnan says unions have a role in North Carolina.

The candidate for the Democratic nomination for labor commissioner said she would work with unions to improve working conditions in the state, but she would not necessarily favor them.

"It's like asking, what do you think of employers?" she told Dome. "They have been very supportive of me, and I have beey supportive of making sure that they can bring their voice and perspective to the table. It's a good way to have accountability on both sides."

Donnan has received the backing of two of the biggest unions — the AFL-CIO and the N.C. Association of Educators — in a state that is otherwise not very friendly to labor groups. She said she thinks the labor commissioner can do things unions typically do in other states, such as mediating disputes between workers and employers.

Donnan also said she is open to looking at collective bargaining rights for public employees, but her position would depend on how it is tied to the right to strike and other issues.

"I can't just come out and say 'yes' or 'no' in an interview like this one because of the way all of those pieces fit together," she said. "I certainly am open to it."