AFX International Focus, May 31, 2007, Thursday

Copyright 2007 AFX News Limited

AFX International Focus

May 31, 2007 Thursday 7:26 PM GMT

HEADLINE: Pro-union bills are veto bait for Bush

BODY:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Labor legislation that is a priority for Democrats has become the definition of 'veto bait' for the White House.

Five of the 24 veto threats President Bush has issued since Democrats took control of Congress target bills with provisions that benefit unions and their members.

Measures passed by either the House or Senate making it easier for unions to organize workplaces, stiffening penalties for union busting or establishing more collective bargaining rights for federal employees are among those under veto threats. Often they're tucked into the fine print provisions and not the major subject of the bill itself.

'There's really a lot of examples where he's looked at legislation, it seems, from the perspective of, 'Will this help workers?' 'Will this help workers win representation?' And if the answer is yes, he finds a reason to veto it,' said William Samuel, the AFL-CIO's chief lobbyist.

Unions spent more than $66 million in the midterm election cycle, most of that money going to Democratic candidates. Republicans grouse that Democratic leaders now in charge of the House and Senate are simply repaying their benefactors.

'What we see going on is directly related to the partisanship of a political party winning power and paying back the union bosses for their support for all these years,' said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas.

The bills are 'in fact sort of an earmark to Big Labor interests and a payback to Big Labor,' said Rep. John Mica, R-Fla.

Democrats reject the insinuation that they're paying back labor for help in the election, saying that is more the way Republicans ran Congress.

'That is why you lost your leadership, because they were paying back their supporters,' said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., who chairs the House Education and Labor Committee and has a 99 percent pro-labor voting record. 'The fact of the matter is, that is not the way we are doing business.'

Bush's supporters encourage him to continue to hold the line against organized labor.

'The American people need to know that these union leaders are consumed with a power grab,' said Richard Berman of the Washington-based Center for Union Facts, a group critical of organized labor. 'I think most people should be glad that Bush is in the White House with the attitude that he has.'

The president has been no friend to unions since winning the White House.

He suspended Clinton-era rules that required the government to favor union-organized companies with federal contracts, rolled back overtime pay rights for some 6 million workers, enacted the Central America Free Trade Agreement that unions blame for exporting U.S. jobs and repealed ergonomic safety standards.

Most of the time, Clinton was dealing with a Republican-controlled Congress. The new Democrat-controlled Congress is pushing forward on issues that received little attention from the GOP the previous six years, leaving only two ways to stop labor bills: Senate filibusters or White House vetos.

'Labor has not been at all shy about their opposition to the Bush administration and his policies, and his response has been in kind,' said Richard Hurd, professor of industrial and labor relations at Cornell University. 'He's been very clear in his opposition to unions and so it's not at all surprising. He's not going to budge just because he doesn't have control; he has enough control to stop legislation.'

Bush has vetoed only one bill this year -- a measure with more than $90 billion to continue wars in Iraq and Afghanistan tied to a timetable for withdrawing troops from the former, but also including the first minimum wage increase in a decade. Once Democrats removed the withdrawal timetable, he signed the bill, with the minimum wage increase.

But he's issued 24 other veto threats, four of them to House-passed bills that favor unions. Another veto threat was leveled at a Senate anti-terrorism bill that would provide whistleblower and collective bargaining rights to 45,000 airport screeners whose jobs were federalized after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The most glaring pro-union measure of the five is a House-passed bill that Democrats labeled the Employee Free Choice Act. It would require employers to recognize a union without any election once more than 50 percent of its work force had signed union cards. With enough votes to win a filibuster fight, Senate Republicans vow it will never reach the president's desk.

Other House-passed measures that Bush has said he would veto include:

--A renewal of the Clean Water Act that would require state and local governments getting federal grants for water treatment plants to pay 'prevailing' local wages often tied to pay scales for unionized building trades workers. Non-unionized construction firms say that would give their unionized rivals a competitive advantage in winning contracts.

--A massive defense bill for 2008 that discards a new Pentagon personnel system that opponents say curtails bargaining rights for as many as 740,000 civilian defense workers.

--A homeland security bill covering 2008 that includes a Democratic provision that would give the department's 170,000 federal employees greater bargaining rights. The White House said to change the department's current system would 'deny the president authority to manage Executive Branch employees when faced with national security concerns.'

Copyright 2007 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.