Unions split over scoring patents bill

Member unions of the AFL-CIO are battling over whether the nation’s largest labor organization should score votes over on a controversial bill rewriting U.S. patent law.

The United Steelworkers (USW) and the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE) oppose the bill, want it amended and say they will score votes. Both are members of the AFL-CIO, which has yet to decide whether to score a possible upcoming vote in the Senate.  

{mosads}Because of the clout labor has with Democrats, the decision could have a major impact on whether the measure, which is supported by the party’s leadership, is approved by the Senate.

“I am sure it’s not helpful,” said one lobbyist for tech companies, which are the bill’s strongest advocates. “Anything that makes people think twice about it is not a good thing.”

More than two-thirds of the Democratic Conference voted in favor of a similar bill approved by the House last year. The AFL-CIO didn’t score that vote because it believed it could address its issues in discussions with the Senate, according to Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO’s director of government affairs.

Google, Apple and Hewlett-Packard (HP) are among the technological interests supporting the bill.

The companies say they have been targeted by frivolous patent-infringement lawsuits and that settlements are a growing drain on business. A key provision in the bill would limit damages awarded in patent lawsuits.

The bill has faced stiff resistance from research-based pharmaceutical companies, which has given the fight a partisan edge at times.

Pharmaceutical companies have tended to give a disproportionate amount of their campaign donations to Republicans. This year they are giving only slightly more money to the GOP than to Democrats, but in the 2005-2006 cycle they favored Republicans by more than a 2-to-1 margin, according to CQMoneyline.com.

Tech companies, in contrast, have tended to give more to Democrats. Google’s political action committee has given 55 percent of its funds to Democrats in this cycle, while HP has given 54 percent to Democrats.

Besides labor unions, manufacturing groups and research universities have also weighed in against the patent bill. They believe it would undermine patent protections, cut into the profits of U.S. companies and send U.S. jobs overseas.

The bill was expected to come to a floor vote this week but has stalled due to a clash over the damages provision between its sponsor, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and the panel’s ranking member, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.).

When unions first raised concerns last summer as the House considered patent reform, the opposition caught Democrats by surprise, and labor faced pressure from senior Democrats to back off. Labor unions have given $26.4 million to Democrats and only $2.8 million to Republicans in this cycle.

The AFL-CIO is “getting a lot of pushback from the authors of the bill,” said one lobbyist whose client opposes the legislation. “They hate the idea of them scoring the vote.”

The AFL-CIO says it is keeping its powder dry for now, but the union’s executive council has signed off on a statement expressing strong concerns about the measure. The executive council also unanimously approved a motion to score future votes on the patent reform bill.

Those actions led the IFPTE to send around a statement that said the AFL-CIO would score the bill. It then pulled the statement from its website Tuesday after the AFL-CIO said it went too far.

“We want to reserve final judgment until we see the actual language of the legislation,” Samuel said.

“To deal in good faith with the authors of the bill, we have to be open-minded about possible compromises.”

He said the union would likely score votes if members consider the bill passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. If that bill is changed to address labor’s concerns, Samuel said the union might avoid scoring the bill.

“While we respect the AFL-CIO’s decision to leave that open, we will score the bill,” said Matt Biggs, IFPTE’s legislative director. “Democrats typically support our issues, but we think the leadership is putting the cart before the horse here.”

USW President Leo Gerard said his union will score the vote and will push the AFL-CIO to do the same.

“We certainly hope that will be the case too,” said Gerard, whose union counts 850,000 members.

“We would hope the Democrats wouldn’t support a bill that would be a roadmap of jobs out of the country.”

Roughly 100 of IFPTE’s members were on Capitol Hill this week to lobby lawmakers against the bill.

One of labor’s smaller outfits, the union has 80,000 members nationwide working at companies such as Boeing and in federal agencies like NASA.