Opinion, AFSCME 48 Newspaper
Bush-wacked by George!
And by Jeb, too
April 2001
Was it payback for labor's support of Al Gore? Was it payoff for the business interests that gave millions to Bush's campaign?
Was it a "true colors" exposure of how Bush and his advisers, despite all the platitudes about compassionate conservatism and "defending working families," really want to move quickly to assure their richest and most conservative backers that they are willing to stick it to the workers at the bottom? Was it a cynical revelation of how, despite the promise to bring civility and bipartisanship to Washington, Dubya intends to relentlessly careen down the "My Way" highway?
A bit of each. The reality is that many of the gains the American worker has made over the past eight years were the first and primary focus of rollbacks by the Bush administration. If the economists are right - that a lot of the threat of a recession is psychological, an erosion of consumer confidence in their personal futures - it's not only Wall Street that is going to have the jitters. It will be the American worker, if they know what's been going on.
But many don't. All this occurred quickly and piecemeal in the first two months of the Bush administration, much by executive decree or administrative maneuvering. That left unions and labor groups, perhaps seduced a bit by all the "civility" rhetoric, reacting piecemeal, protesting the actions one at a time rather than recognizing right off the bat that this was a concerted attack. A large part of the working public hasn't even noticed these actions. Several Bush moves were part of a "Friday night dump" strategy -- news released to appear in Saturday broadcasts and Saturday newspapers, the least-watched, least-read and least-noticed news cycle.
Council 48 Executive Director Richard Abelson speaks out on current labor issues in his regular columns, Direct Talk.
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Put them all together , though, and there is no mistake. The Bush administration is trying in all the ways it can to turn back the clock, and that does have broad implications not just for union members but for the economy as a whole.
It's been quite a litany, though largely unnoticed. Only one reversal gained front-page attention and that was a case of self-destruction, when Linda Chavez was nominated as Secretary of Labor and then was forced to withdraw amid publicity of how she hired and treated illegal aliens.
Her replacement, Elaine Chao, wife of one of the Republicans' most conservative and anti-campaign-finance-reform members, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky , brings a friendlier manner and stronger administrative credentials to the office, but her initial actions suggest that she will not initiate programs that are pro-worker as much as she will provide the platitudes that will support the White House line, as we shall see in a moment.
But after the Chavez fiasco came a flurry of activity to rescind executive orders of the Clinton administration and jam through Congress, mainly along party lines, legislation that not only reverses course but makes the hurdles higher for labor groups to make their case in the future.
Here is simply the top of the iceberg of what the Bush team has done thus far:-
1. He reimposed one of his father's executive order that Clinton rescinded in 1993. That order now again requires federal contractors to post a notice telling workers they have a right under a 1988 Supreme Court ruling not to pay the portion of their dues that sponsors political activities. That's fine, that's the law, but there was a reason Clinton rescinded this order. Because it was unbalanced - it did not also require contractors to inform workers of their fundamental right to organize and bargain collectively. So now the lopsided notification is back in effect.
- 2. Another of daddy's rules came back. The first Bush president, and now the second, prohibited federal agencies from requiring construction firms relying on federal funds or assistance for a specific project to allow workers on that project temporary representation by a union. Clinton had rescinded that approach in 1994 and also sought to create a ``project labor agreement,'' so that, at the discretion of states, contractors in many federally financed projects could be required to unionize.
In the view of many, incidentally, the intent of that Clinton effort was not just to protect unions but to protect standards. The new Bush team defended the actions by suggesting that "lower-cost" contractors could now have a chance to bid, and that, of course, means undercutting union-level standards on federal projects.
- 3. Bush also eliminated a 1994 Clinton administration directive to federal agencies to give qualified service workers hiring preference on new jobs in public buildings when their companies lose their contract to other firms.
- 4. Bush also threw the baby out with the bathwater, reversing Clinton's creation of a special National Partnership Council to work on labor-management relations. Its representatives did not just include the three top federal unions and the AFL-CIO but representatives of federal agencies and of groups representing management. The mission was to support and promote effective labor-management partnerships, collect and disseminate information about partnership and advise the president on the state of labor-management relations.
Since 1993 its meetings and reports have served as a guidepost for how to develop labor-management programs. They have been widely cited and applied not just in union situations or even in federal agencies but across the board. The council has promoted cost-efficient and cooperative strategies that also work in the private sector. The council has used academic institutions to research and develop methods, and it also set up recognition awards to promote both managers and workers who have created effective programs.
It was, in the view of many in management as well as in labor, a good program, an effective advisory group that Bush has now eliminated.
- 5. Ergonomics reform is dead. The first concerted action by the Bush White House in both houses of Congress was not campaign finance reform, tax cuts or any such heavily stumped issue in the national presidential election but seeking to wipe out the new repetitive-motion rules OSHA had recommended that would cover 102 million workers at 6.1 million work sites.
OSHA estimated that the rules would prevent 4.6 million musculoskeletal disorders and save businesses $9.1 billion annually the first 10 years, while costing those business about $4.9 billion to implement. The issue, of course, is that preventive protection now will save everyone money in the long run, including taxpayers. The ergonomics standards, incidentally, would apply in many non-union workplaces.
These rules have been debated, revised and simplified over almost a decade, with business groups lobbying actively against them as too complicated and costly. In actual fact, the rules are pretty clear on steps that could be taken to reduce carpal tunnel syndrome, back injuries and other ailments. Even at the last minute Democratic leaders in Congress signaled a willingness to negotiate. But the Republicans would have none of that, employing legislative maneuvers that will also prevent any such rules from going into effect in the future without congressional approval.
Chao, the labor secretary, in one of her first public pronouncements, tried to provide safe ground for legislators voting to kill OSHA's recommendations. She provided Congress a letter saying her department would "'pursue a comprehensive approach to ergonomics, which may include new rule-making." The irony of that, of course, is that the form of the legislation prevents the Labor Department from creating any new rules without both houses of Congress voting for it, unlikely given the current congressional makeup. Chao's pledge, though, did offer some cover for the handful of Democrats in both Houses that voted with the Republicans.
- 6. Bush is tilting the mediation rules where he has executive power to do so. Nowhere is this more clear than with airlines, four of which are in major negotiations with workers on new contracts, where the threat of strikes is a major economic weapon for the unions.
Now, airline strikes do threaten to disrupt travelers and the economy. No one wants them. Clinton also imposed "cooling off" periods when the sides in an airline dispute failed to reach agreement. The difference is, Clinton waited until the last minute, encouraging both sides to settle without knowing how, when or if he would step in. In contrast, the Bush White House has signaled months in advance that it will not allow any airline strike and will impose cooling-off periods under executive order. That, in effect, undercuts any urgency for the airlines to negotiate with their workers and robs the unions of a major negotiating weapon.
These seemingly little dribbles of anti-labor activity have mounted into a flood, and there's more on the way. The Bush budget eliminates a lot of programs in the public sector, which could bring layoffs and privatization. The new bankruptcy rules are in effect written by the credit card companies and skew heavily toward penalizing working families in credit trouble.
So now, when Bush makes his case for tax cuts "for all" - meaning, of course, more than 40% of the cuts going to the highest 1% on the income scale -- he is creating his own atmosphere of unease. The public has remained dubious about the size of the tax cut, presenting us with one of the strangest situations in recent presidential history. Usually, the hardest sell for any president is making a case for increased taxes or no tax cuts, for Americans to cinch up the belt. When in the past has a president had to work so hard to sell a tax cut?
When you combine the anti-labor moves with his drive toward backloaded tax cuts that won't help much for today - and who knows what we need in the future? - a curious pattern is emerging early in the Bush presidency. He is forcing a sense of doubt and uncertainty on the American worker by resisting wage and home security, undercutting labor-management equity and eliminating safeguards. He is demanding that Congress stick with his tax plan at the same time as corporate America is signaling its own skepticism about his projections and their impact.
None of the actions, in fact, have done anything to instill confidence or put actual money into the hands of the workforce that has been the hidden backbone of the incredible economic gains of the last eight years.
These moves may be short-sighted in terms of the overall needs of our economy, but they do set the tone that Bush's most conservative supporters wanted to hear from the White House. We'll be hearing a lot more of that tone, unless labor gets its own chorus together.
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