LABOR’S LEGISLATIVE AGENDA STARTING TO EMERGE

Friday, November 7, 2008

(PAI)

LABOR’S LEGISLATIVE AGENDA STARTING TO EMERGE
By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

            WASHINGTON (PAI)--By bits and pieces, in congratulatory statements to President-elect Barack Obama and in press conferences, labor’s legislative agenda for the new Democratic-run government that starts next year is emerging.

            Headlining it, of course, is the Employee Free Choice Act, designed to help level the playing field between workers and bosses in organizing and bargaining.

            The act would legalize card check recognition of unions, increase fines for labor law-breaking, order arbitration if unions and bosses cannot reach a first contract in 120 days and make court orders against labor lawbreakers easier.

            But that’s also the measure that will draw the most-immediate, well-funded and bitter opposition--as the Chamber of Commerce called it the top priority for defeat in a Nov. 6 press conference with the corporate group’s top lobbyist.

            Even before next year, however, labor will be busy when the current 110th Congress returns for a lame-duck session starting Nov. 17. AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and federation Legislative Director Bill Samuel made clear unions would push hard for a “Stimulus II” bill during that session.

            Elements of that legislation include extending federal jobless benefits from their current 26 weeks to 39, billions of dollars in spending for infrastructure projects--rebuilding highways, airports, bridges and so on that could quickly provide high-paying construction jobs--and extending aid to the states to deal with rising costs of Medicaid, the health care program for the poor hit by growing numbers of uninsured unemployed.

            “The election is just step one in delivering the change we need,” said Sweeney. “Working men and women are poised to keep pumping to help the Obama administration lead the change we need. There will be no gap or letdown.”   Added Change to Win Chair Anna Burger: “Nov. 4 was the beginning, not the end, of a workers political movement.”

            Once the stimulus package and special session are out of the way, and the new Congress and Obama take office, other elements of labor’s legislative agenda include:

            * Legislation reversing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Lilly Ledbetter ruling, which virtually barred anyone from suing employers for pay discrimination based on sex--or any other factor--except within 180 days of being hired.

            Like the Employee Free Choice Act, labor-backed legislation overturning the High Court’s ruling passed the House in this Congress but was killed by one of the Senate GOP’s 104 successful filibusters.

            * Legislation both expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act and also, for the first time, enacting paid family leave. A bill instituting seven days of paid leave passed the House Education and Labor Committee, but got no farther.

            * Legislation overturning a ruling by the anti-worker GOP Bush regime that barred the thousands of airport screeners from unionizing. Federal worker unions also claim they have assurances that Obama will let the anti-worker National Security Personnel System (NSPS), imposed by Bush’s Defense Department on tens of thousands of civilian DOD workers, die when its renewal comes up next year.

            NSPS strips workers of whistleblower protections, collective bargaining rights and fair hearings when discipline occurs. It also lets supervisors arbitrarily set pay.

            * A bill, called the Respect Act, to overturn the Bush-named National Labor Relations Board’s ruling that reclassified millions of workers as supervisors, not protected by already weak labor law.

            * Obama’s reversal of the Bush regime’s Federal Aviation Administration’s refusal to bargain a new contract with the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.   Bush’s Office of Management and Budget trashed a NATCA-FAA pact reached in the closing days of the Clinton administration. Six years later, Bush’s FAA declared an impasse and imposed a pact featuring longer hours, wage freezes for the most-experienced controllers and cuts for the rest. Controllers have been retiring in droves.

            “For more than two years now our workforce has been one in crisis, attacked and disrespected by an anti-union administration. But change is coming. It is imminent. And NATCA will be there to welcome, embrace and escort it as we work together for a safer, more efficient system. No longer will the employees at the FAA be treated like the enemy. There will be a culture change,” NATCA President Patrick Forrey said.

            Obama introduced and strongly pushed legislation to force Bush’s FAA back to bargaining. “NATCA has waited a long time for this day and we couldn’t be happier in embracing the hope that fairness will finally be brought back into the FAA,” Forrey said.

            * Fair trade, not free trade. In a press conference with Public Citizen, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and two new House Democrats, Steel Workers President Leo Gerard predicted a new push for the labor-backed Trade Act. That measure, introduced this year, went nowhere. It would set new rules for U.S. trade pacts, ordering U.S. trade bargainers to write enforceable labor standards into their texts.    ###