Gov. Linda Lingle has until Monday to decide if she will veto a measure that is intended to make it easier for employees to vote for union representation.

House Bill 2974 was approved by the Legislature and awaits Lingle's signature. But the director of the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations said the governor is "inclined" to veto the measure because of concerns raised by small-business owners, particularly farmers, who said they would be adversely affected by the law.

"We've been having a lot of input from the businesses and the impact on them has raised a lot of concerns," said Darwin Ching, labor director. "The governor is going to be considering carefully all the input from all the different stakeholders and the effects it has."

Under the measure, workers who do not belong to a union could organize if a majority of them signed authorization cards. If the signatures are validated by the Hawai'i Labor Relations Board, the employees would become part of a bargaining unit.

The law also would mandate that contract negotiations begin immediately, and if no contract is reached after 90 days an arbitration panel would step in and settle any disputes. Whatever decision is made by the panel would be binding.

The bill is patterned after the Employee Free Choice Act that is pending before Congress.

Under the current law, employees who want to join a union must obtain signatures from at least 30 percent of the eligible workers. Once the signatures are validated, a secret-ballot vote is conducted and a majority is needed to authorize union representation.

The measure before Lingle would cover employees who do not fall under the jurisdiction of the National Labor Relations Board. Ching said that would include all agricultural workers and small businesses with less than $500,000 in annual gross revenues.

Ching said the administration's primary concern is the law would take away an employee's right to cast a secret ballot.

"The issue that we have stated in our testimony to the Legislature has been one of fairness and democratic principles," he said yesterday. "It's not in any way to be considered anti-union or union bashing. All we're saying is that in America everyone has the right to vote, to have their voice protected in a secret ballot, and that's all we're saying."

The bill has the support of unions, which argued that the current system is "broken."

In testimony before the Senate Judiciary and Labor Committee in March, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 142 argued that workers often face coercion and intimidation from their employers because of their union activity. Some employers also tend to drag out negotiations for their benefit, the ILWU said.

"(The bill) will help to level the playing field for workers seeking to be unionized," the ILWU testified. "It would provide for a collective bargaining agreement to be initiated in an expeditious manner. Too often, employers will delay negotiation of a first contract while trying to find a means to nullify union certification."

The ILWU pointed to the labor issues at the Pacific Beach Hotel in Waikiki, where employees voted to be represented by the ILWU more than three years ago, but have never been given a contract. In the meantime, the hotel's management changed hands twice and the current managers said they no longer recognize the union as representing the workers.

The governor's office yesterday brought together a group of small-business owners and advocates to express their concerns about the measure.

Paul Koehler, a manager for Monsanto Hawai'i, said the law as written could lead to the intimidation of workers by fellow employees and union representatives. He said two years ago, Monsanto's Maui employees garnered enough signatures to call for a vote, but when the ballots were cast, Koehler said 80 percent voted against unionizing.

Alicia Maluafiti, executive director of the Hawai'i Crop Improvement Association, said the law could drive up costs for small companies from 25 percent to 30 percent should more of their employees become unionized. This could lead to more business failures, she said.

"Small businesses cannot absorb that additional costs on top of the cost of doing business in Hawai'i," Maluafiti said.