Big Labor flexes its muscles in Congress — with mixed results

The day after voters returned Democrats to power in the House and Senate last year, the AFL-CIO held a press conference at its Washington headquarters to announce that union members had come to the polls in large numbers to vote Democratic.

They also promised to remind the new rulers of Congress that labor put them there, and that unions would be back in 2007 looking for support. So far, all indications show Democrats in Congress have been happy to oblige one of their most loyal constituencies.

{mosads}Legislation backed by labor that was left on the shelves when the House was under Republican rule has been dusted off by Democrats and moved to the floor. This includes so-called card-check legislation approved by the House earlier this year, which was the subject of a huge lobbying fight between labor and business.

By contrast, free-trade agreements opposed by labor and negotiated by the Bush administration have been delayed, some apparently until after the 2008 election.

“There’s been a dramatic change since January,” said Bill Samuel, a top lobbyist for the AFL-CIO who is in frequent communication with Democratic leaders. “Issues that have been long ignored are now getting the attention they deserve.”

“I think they’ve done a fair job in recognizing what our priorities are and addressing them,” agreed Fred McLuckie, legislative director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

House Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (R-Fla.) agreed with the labor leaders, but put a different spin on the changing tides.

“The brazenness with which they’ve paid back Big Labor is astonishing,” said Putnam, who thinks the loyalty will come back to haunt Democrats next year, particularly since labor unions now represent less than 8 percent of the nation’s private workforce.

Putnam said the shifting fortunes for labor reflect “a blatant return to the old stereotype of Big Labor bosses pulling the strings of Democrats.”

Few Democrats, however, seem to think helping labor will hurt them. For example, only two House Democrats voted against the card-check legislation despite intense lobbying by business groups and negative advertisements in some districts. In the Senate, every Democrat voted in favor of card-check on the floor, as did Republican Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.).  

Pro-business Democratic Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.) said he has some differences with unions on trade. But he has no problem supporting card-check or other pro-union bills that he sees as helping low- and middle-income workers get a share of the economic pie.

While card-check legislation, formally known as the Employee Free Choice Act, received the lion’s share of headlines over the first half of the year, dozens of other measures designed to help the labor movement have been inching forward.
For example, lawmakers have attached to several bills language requiring that workers be paid a prevailing wage — and the tactic has helped highlight divisions within the Republican Party. Fifty House Republicans voted to keep prevailing-wage language in a water-resources bill earlier this year.

In addition, the Teamsters and the International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers won a provision in the House Federal Aviation Administration bill that makes it easier for employees of Federal Express to form unions, which could be a boon to the Teamsters and the machinists union. A second provision backed by labor would force the administration back to the negotiating table with air traffic controllers.

And just last week, the House approved a bill providing collective-bargaining rights for firefighters and other first responders in all 50 states. The lower chamber also passed a Department of Labor funding bill that offers increased dollars for workplace enforcement offices like the Wage and Hour Division, which looks into claims that overtime is not being paid, while cutting funds for an office that investigates union corruption.

In the second half of 2007, the AFL-CIO expects to push for bankruptcy law reforms as well as legislation overturning a National Labor Relations Board ruling that broadly defined workers considered to be supervisors. Overturning the decision could allow many more workers to qualify for collective bargaining rights.

Furthermore, the Teamsters will continue to press Democrats to prevent the administration from carrying out plans to allow Mexican trucks access to U.S. roads, McLuckie said.

Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which split from the AFL-CIO a few years ago, is lobbying aggressively on several broad policy issues, including an expansion of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger.

The debate over ending the war in Iraq is also a top priority for SEIU members, who are even more anti-war than the rest of the nation, Burger said, explaining that the SEIU sees the Iraq war as diverting funds that could be used to provide universal healthcare and other priorities.

Still, while union proposals have won momentum, only one union priority — an increase in the minimum wage — has actually become law. Other measures have been held up in the Senate by Republican-led filibusters or are threatened by presidential vetoes.

While the AFL-CIO’s Samuel admits that moving from a defensive posture to offense has been exciting, he said there is frustration that labor issues have been held up in the Senate. And he insists Democrats have not given labor a blank check, even though he and his colleagues are spending more time in the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) in this Congress. “You still have to argue your case on its merits,” he said.

“For the last 12 years we were for the most part on the defensive,” Samuel continued. “It was other people who were making decisions which we were reacting to. I think now we are able to make decisions, to decide what issues to promote.”

AFL-CIO officials meet weekly to decide which issues to push for. They are also in frequent contact with other labor leaders, who say there’s no evidence that Democratic leaders are playing favorites among the sometimes-fractious labor movement.

SEIU and the Teamsters left the AFL-CIO a few years ago and formed the Change to Win coalition. But McLuckie said he hadn’t heard any complaints within the Change to Win coalition about access to Democrats.

For their part, Republicans hope to use labor’s successes to portray Democrats as too compliant with union demands. For example, the National Republican Senate Committee is already trying to raise money from small businesses spooked by the card-check bill.

It has produced an ominously scored video featuring grainy footage of Senate Democrats rallying for the card-check legislation to convince businesses to donate to the GOP next year. In the video, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) tells the crowd, “We have a majority in the U.S. Senate because of you.” Meanwhile, the figure $1,389,489 flashes on the screen to reflect the contributions Reid has received from “Big Labor.”

The video closes with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) promising to sign the bill into law when she is president, and notes Republicans need only two seats to regain control of the Senate.

While unions are holding off on their presidential endorsements for now, the video reflects their long-term plan for card check. In 2009, labor hopes to have a Democratic president and a larger majority in the Senate, which would make business-backed filibusters more difficult.

“I think it will be easier next time,” said Samuel, who thinks the labor agenda in Congress will help Democrats in next year’s elections. “I think these measures are generally very popular.”