Picket ban worries union

Jeffrey Libby

Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2002 | 9:57 a.m.

The Henderson City Council will talk with union officials before reconsidering a proposed ordinance that would have banned picketing at individual homes.

The City Council on Tuesday withdrew the proposed ordinance from consideration after receiving calls of concern from state AFL-CIO leader Danny Thompson and the Southern Nevada Carpenters Union.

Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Interfaith Council for Worker Justice also attended the meeting, but left without making public remarks after the proposed ordinance was dropped from the agenda.

"We want to make sure we have the opportunity to have a full discussion," Mayor Jim Gibson said. The council expects to look at the proposal again in January.

City Attorney Shauna Hughes said the proposed ordinance would not likely need major changes and "certainly was not intended as an anti-labor ordinance."

The proposed ordinance closely tracks a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said a city could limit free speech by banning the picketing of an individual home. The case involved anti-abortion activists protesting outside a doctor's home in Brookfield, Wis.

Though few have picketed individual homes, the city drafted the ordinance to protect the tranquility of residents' homes, the city attorney's office said.