Bush On Labor - "Worse than Ronald Reagan" (Mar. 27, 2003)
Created by: Administrator,Last modification on 27 Mar 2003 [06:00 UTC]
By Cynthia Green
He promised compassionate conservatism in his 2000 presidential campaign, but for working families, President Bush has delivered anything but since being installed in the White House.
Bush's labor report card might make his father proud, but labor leaders give him a failing grade, pointing to a fast-growing list of anti-union actions, proposals and tactics emanating from the current administration.
"He's far more anti-labor than even Ronald Reagan was," says Nathan Newman, a lawyer at New York University law school's Brennan Center for Justice and vice president of the National Lawyers' Guild in New York.
"From end to end, from issue to issue, he's mounted a direct assault on labor unions and the working poor," Newman says.
From core labor issues like the right to organize to administrative appointments at the National Labor Relations Board, Bush has swiftly reversed much of the gain unions enjoyed under President Clinton – and has eroded standards that had survived even the preceding 12 years of Republican rule of the White House.
Right out of the gate in 2001, Bush signed several executive orders that ended federal project labor agreements, abolished labor-management partnerships in federal agencies and sought to require government contractors to post notices informing workers of their right not to join unions, without requiring any information on the right to join.
That first year in office was also punctuated by the administration's intervention to block strikes at United and Northwest Airlines and threats to do the same at Delta and American Airlines, which effectively undermined the unions' negotiating strength.
Bush followed this with an airline bailout bill that Congress passed without any aid to tens of thousands of displaced airline workers and that contained just the flimsiest of language addressing industry executives' runaway compensation packages.
By the summer of 2001, Congress had done the president's bidding on a massive $1.35 trillion tax cut, skewed dramatically to the wealthiest. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the new tax law and its increased debt servicing costs would eat up almost half of the then-projected $5.6 trillion 10-year federal budget surplus. The bill neatly robbed the government of any future flexibility on social spending by reinstating budget deficits for years to come.
Bush's gratitude to his well-heeled campaign contributors hasn't stopped there. Cloaked as a "jobs and growth" package amid lingering economic weakness, the president now seeks to push another $726 billion in tax cuts through a reluctant Congress.
Half of the cost of this proposal hangs on his stubborn bid to repeal the dividend tax, which critics say will provide no short-term economic stimulus and which can hardly be characterized as a jobs creator.
In a surprise action just this week, the Senate voted to halve Bush's tax cut figure to $350 billion, which has put the scope and fate of any final compromise bill in question.
Meanwhile, Bush's budget for fiscal year 2004 calls for cuts in labor spending and fails to address the growing ranks of the long-term unemployed.
His budget contains a cornucopia of proposals hostile to working families, from provisions that undermine employer-sponsored health insurance plans by introducing refundable health insurance tax credits to cuts that compromise worker health and safety programs. Bush's outline also calls for a stingy 2% raise for federal government workers, less than the expected cost of living increase.
But Bush is again looking to bolster funding and staff increases to audit, investigate and prosecute unions.
Last year, Bush and congressional Republicans held hostage the bill creating the new Department of Homeland Security, insisting on eliminating the collective bargaining rights of its 170,000 workers. Bush tried to sell his point by invoking national security concerns, an insulting gesture to the nation's brave first responders, who are overwhelmingly unionized. (Separately, Bush also prevented tens of thousands of airport security screeners from organizing into unions.)
Many months after Democrats first proposed the new domestic defense department in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush abandoned his opposition and submitted a rush request to Congress to bring together more than dozen federal government agencies.
Though Senate Republicans filibustered the bill over the labor provisions until after the midterm congressional elections, their political spin machine convinced enough of the voting public that it was Democrats who were delaying the department's creation – a message that cost labor's traditional party precious seats in both chambers of Congress.
Last October, President Bush invoked the emergency powers of the Taft-Hartley Act, and won a court order to suspend an employer lockout of 10,000 West Coast longshoremen, skewing the bargaining relationship in management's favor.
With an eye on his own 2004 reelection campaign, Bush had been courting a handful of unions where he found support for his energy bill. But his attempt to divide the labor movement hit a brick wall in February when Labor Secretary Elaine Chao offered one insult too many at the AFL-CIO's executive council meeting in Florida.
Questioned by labor leaders about onerous proposed financial reporting requirements for unions, Chao read from a list of union corruption charges, seemingly as justification. Her performance incensed labor leaders and led to a new level of unity within the AFL-CIO.
The proposed punitive rule would require unions to track and itemize all expenditures of more than $2000 to a single person or group. This is the latest in a list of union reporting requirements that are already more strenuous than those imposed on corporations or non-profit groups. Meanwhile, the administration, including the Securities and Exchange Commission has sought to neutralize attempts to tighten laws governing corporate cowboys.
Since Chao's outburst, labor leaders have since redoubled their resolve to unseat Bush in 2004, pledging millions to efforts aimed at mobilizing even non-union voters.
Cynthia Green is a freelance writer.
He promised compassionate conservatism in his 2000 presidential campaign, but for working families, President Bush has delivered anything but since being installed in the White House.
Bush's labor report card might make his father proud, but labor leaders give him a failing grade, pointing to a fast-growing list of anti-union actions, proposals and tactics emanating from the current administration.
"He's far more anti-labor than even Ronald Reagan was," says Nathan Newman, a lawyer at New York University law school's Brennan Center for Justice and vice president of the National Lawyers' Guild in New York.
"From end to end, from issue to issue, he's mounted a direct assault on labor unions and the working poor," Newman says.
From core labor issues like the right to organize to administrative appointments at the National Labor Relations Board, Bush has swiftly reversed much of the gain unions enjoyed under President Clinton – and has eroded standards that had survived even the preceding 12 years of Republican rule of the White House.
Right out of the gate in 2001, Bush signed several executive orders that ended federal project labor agreements, abolished labor-management partnerships in federal agencies and sought to require government contractors to post notices informing workers of their right not to join unions, without requiring any information on the right to join.
That first year in office was also punctuated by the administration's intervention to block strikes at United and Northwest Airlines and threats to do the same at Delta and American Airlines, which effectively undermined the unions' negotiating strength.
Bush followed this with an airline bailout bill that Congress passed without any aid to tens of thousands of displaced airline workers and that contained just the flimsiest of language addressing industry executives' runaway compensation packages.
By the summer of 2001, Congress had done the president's bidding on a massive $1.35 trillion tax cut, skewed dramatically to the wealthiest. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the new tax law and its increased debt servicing costs would eat up almost half of the then-projected $5.6 trillion 10-year federal budget surplus. The bill neatly robbed the government of any future flexibility on social spending by reinstating budget deficits for years to come.
Bush's gratitude to his well-heeled campaign contributors hasn't stopped there. Cloaked as a "jobs and growth" package amid lingering economic weakness, the president now seeks to push another $726 billion in tax cuts through a reluctant Congress.
Half of the cost of this proposal hangs on his stubborn bid to repeal the dividend tax, which critics say will provide no short-term economic stimulus and which can hardly be characterized as a jobs creator.
In a surprise action just this week, the Senate voted to halve Bush's tax cut figure to $350 billion, which has put the scope and fate of any final compromise bill in question.
Meanwhile, Bush's budget for fiscal year 2004 calls for cuts in labor spending and fails to address the growing ranks of the long-term unemployed.
His budget contains a cornucopia of proposals hostile to working families, from provisions that undermine employer-sponsored health insurance plans by introducing refundable health insurance tax credits to cuts that compromise worker health and safety programs. Bush's outline also calls for a stingy 2% raise for federal government workers, less than the expected cost of living increase.
But Bush is again looking to bolster funding and staff increases to audit, investigate and prosecute unions.
Last year, Bush and congressional Republicans held hostage the bill creating the new Department of Homeland Security, insisting on eliminating the collective bargaining rights of its 170,000 workers. Bush tried to sell his point by invoking national security concerns, an insulting gesture to the nation's brave first responders, who are overwhelmingly unionized. (Separately, Bush also prevented tens of thousands of airport security screeners from organizing into unions.)
Many months after Democrats first proposed the new domestic defense department in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Bush abandoned his opposition and submitted a rush request to Congress to bring together more than dozen federal government agencies.
Though Senate Republicans filibustered the bill over the labor provisions until after the midterm congressional elections, their political spin machine convinced enough of the voting public that it was Democrats who were delaying the department's creation – a message that cost labor's traditional party precious seats in both chambers of Congress.
Last October, President Bush invoked the emergency powers of the Taft-Hartley Act, and won a court order to suspend an employer lockout of 10,000 West Coast longshoremen, skewing the bargaining relationship in management's favor.
With an eye on his own 2004 reelection campaign, Bush had been courting a handful of unions where he found support for his energy bill. But his attempt to divide the labor movement hit a brick wall in February when Labor Secretary Elaine Chao offered one insult too many at the AFL-CIO's executive council meeting in Florida.
Questioned by labor leaders about onerous proposed financial reporting requirements for unions, Chao read from a list of union corruption charges, seemingly as justification. Her performance incensed labor leaders and led to a new level of unity within the AFL-CIO.
The proposed punitive rule would require unions to track and itemize all expenditures of more than $2000 to a single person or group. This is the latest in a list of union reporting requirements that are already more strenuous than those imposed on corporations or non-profit groups. Meanwhile, the administration, including the Securities and Exchange Commission has sought to neutralize attempts to tighten laws governing corporate cowboys.
Since Chao's outburst, labor leaders have since redoubled their resolve to unseat Bush in 2004, pledging millions to efforts aimed at mobilizing even non-union voters.
Cynthia Green is a freelance writer.
© 2003 Labor Research Association
