Bartlet On EFCA

California's Harvest of Shame from California Assembly Access on Vimeo.

Actor Martin Sheen will be in Washington tomorrow with several of his former West Wing colleagues to make a pitch for the Employee Free Choice Act, which makes it easier for workers to organize. But last year, Sheen lent his voice to a film created by California Assemblyman Fabian Nuñez. Nuñez and his staff "trekked through fields near Stockton and Bakersfield to interview field hands and labor contractors for a 21-minute documentary," according to the Los Angeles Times, that highlighted the plight of farm workers.

The lawmaker made the doc to push his bill, which would have changed the way farmworker union elections have operated since 1975.

Here's the LAT:

Instead of having employees vote in secret ballots at the workplace on whether to unionize, the bill would allow workers to take a ballot home. Nuñez says such a method would still give workers a secret ballot while avoiding drawn-out campaigns of intimidation by both growers and the union.

In decided contrast with EFCA?

Sheen narrated the film's epilogue and prologue. And gladly stepping to the fictional POTUS' defense is AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale:

"I may not be CJ Cregg, but this desperate attack by big business is pure fiction," Vale said. "The Employee Free Choice Act will allow workers to form a union through majority sign up, taking away the right of corporations to demand a ballot election they can readily manipulate. Workers can still choose a ballot election if they prefer - but it will be their choice, not the corporations."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)