For labor, it’s not just card-check

Organized labor realizes it has a once-in-a-generation chance to change policy next year and is pursuing an aggressive legislative agenda that goes far beyond controversial legislation making it easier to form unions.

The battle over so-called card-check legislation allowing workers to form unions by signing authorization cards is expected to dominate the battle between business and labor. But unions are also pursuing a host of other goals that would radically change worker-management relations, as well as broader policy goals on healthcare, trade and energy.

{mosads}Backed by increased Democratic majorities in Congress and a labor-friendly president in the White House, unions hope to move several bills that would strengthen labor and increase union membership, which has suffered a steady decline over several decades. Only 12 percent of workers are now unionized.

The key is the Senate, where several labor bills died in the last Congress after moving through the House. With Democrats increasing the number of seats their caucus controls from 51 to 58, labor believes it will have the 60 votes it needs in the next Congress to overcome procedural hurdles in the Senate.

That includes card-check, which won 51 votes in 2007, as well as legislation that would extend the time female and minority workers have for suing an employer over past wage discrimination.

The legislation won 56 votes in the 110th Congress. Business groups opposed it, arguing it would bring on excessive litigation and allow workers to file lawsuits on circumstantial evidence.

The labor movement also hopes to move a bill that would grant public service employees, such as firefighters and police officers, collective bargaining rights. Unions for public employees want to be able to negotiate for better wages and benefits from their employers, but also emphasize they’d use the rights to push for stronger safety standards for equipment used on the job.

“It is inherently unfair that the men and women who make our fire trucks can collectively bargain but the men and women who put their lives on the line do not,” said Kevin O’Connor, who leads government relations at the International Association of Fire Fighters.

With Democrats controlling at least 58 seats in the next Congress, proponents think they’ll have much luck next year.

“We believe we have the 60 votes for it to move forward,” O’Connor said.

Legislation has been introduced since 1995, but made its greatest progress last year, passing the House with more than 300 votes including a slim majority of Republicans, but dying in the Senate, where it never received a formal vote.

Unions are also pressing forward with bills targeted more toward their own parochial interests.

For example, the nurses’ unions will push for a bill reversing a 2006 ruling by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) that changed the definition of a workplace’s “supervisor” so that those employees no longer could join unions. Labor worries this will reduce membership in nurses’ unions.

Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) introduced legislation last year that would have essentially voided the NLRB decision, but it gained little traction. In 2009, the United American Nurses (UAN) is optimistic.

“I can’t help but feel with a Congress that is more supportive to labor, we at least will get on the docket,” said Jean Ross, secretary-treasurer for the 50,000-member group, which also is looking for increased federal funding for education programs.

Several union leaders argue that their legislative goals are the ticket to rebuilding the middle class and boosting the flagging economy.

“We need an American solution to where the good jobs are in the 21st century,” said Andy Stern, president of the Services Employees International Union (SEIU), America’s largest labor group, with 2 million members.

Stern said organized labor will push for healthcare reform, and will lobby for a second economic stimulus package loaded with infrastructure spending projects that could employ workers.

“This is not 1992 where the status quo might be acceptable, where you heard the budget crisis had to be solved before the health crisis,” Stern said. “We can’t solve the budget crisis without solving the health crisis.”

Stern estimates 20 percent of his union’s members’ family members are without healthcare coverage while 5 percent of members themselves are without coverage.

During the campaign, SEIU partnered with several trade associations and corporations it is at odds with on other issues, such as the National Federation of Independent Business and Wal-Mart, in sponsoring ads and talking with candidates about the need for fixing healthcare.

On energy, unions hope to win support for alternative energy programs that could lead to additional union jobs. They also hope to flex their new clout during negotiations on climate change legislation.

“If you are going to implement cap-and-trade, how you calibrate that, what industries will be helped and hurt — that will matter to us. We want to be part of that conversation,” said Thea Lee, policy director for the AFL-CIO.

Lee’s and other labor groups are firmly behind a “green jobs” program. Retrofitting government buildings to make them more energy-efficient, as well as manufacturing solar panels and windmills here in the United States, are some of the goals of the program.