Bush courts unions with terrorism insurance

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Repeatedly saying "it's time to get our hard-hats back to work," GOP President George W. Bush used the signing ceremony for a new terrorism insurance law to court the nation's construction workers.

The Nov. 26 ceremony inaugurated a law to provide federal taxpayer guarantees for the first several billion dollars of insurance losses after future terrorist strikes, such as the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Insurance companies, real estate interests and several construction unions, led by the Carpenters, lobbied for the law. Consumer groups, usually labor's legislative allies, denounced it as an unneeded giveaway to business at taxpayer expense.

Bush rarely speaks with union officials or invites them to the White House, except for the Carpenters. But he pointedly praised the construction unions for their support. The unions' leaders "put the interests of their membership right on the line" in lobbying for the law, he said.