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Sweeney to building trades: right to organize, filibuster top 2004 legislative agenda

Date Posted: April 29 2005

By Mark Gruenberg
PAI Staff Writer

WASHINGTON (PAI) - Campaigning for the right to organize and preserving the rights of minorities to impact legislation - by preserving filibusters - were AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney's top two legislative priorities in mid-April.

Speaking April 18 to the Building Trades Department legislative conference in Washington, Sweeney and other speakers put great emphasis on the filibuster rule, which the Senate Majority Leader William Frist (R-Tenn.) wants to change.

Frist says he would virtually eliminate filibusters - the right of senators to talk for unlimited time, unless shut off by a three-fifths majority - only on judgeship nominations. Sweeney and the others said it could extend to worker-related issues.

Sweeney also urged the 3,000 delegates to lobby for the Employee Free Choice Act, a major revision of labor law that would level the playing field for workers vis-à-vis employers. "Tell lawmakers that voting 'no' is not an option" on the bill, elevating it in terms of future labor political backing, he said.

EFCA would ban captive audience meetings, increase union access, impose heavy penalties on labor law-breakers and mandate binding arbitration if the company and the union reach an impasse on a first contract, among other revisions. But the GOP-run Congress is not expected to consider it.

The measure "would guarantee freedom to join unions without harassment, intimidation and coercion by employers," Sweeney added. "This the most dramatic demonstration of the linkage between politics and organizing," he pointed out.

The filibuster mess has turned into a heated D.C. lobbying battle because last year Senate Democrats blocked GOP President Bush's nomination of 10 Right Wing appellate judges, while approving 205 other federal judges. Now Frist wants to end such blockages by banning the talk-a-thons.

"We face an all-out attack by the most anti-worker administration in history," and the filibuster battle is part of that, Sweeney said. "It's a move by the Republicans to trample roughshod over the rights of the minority. We need to oppose this because they're stacking the courts with Right Wing judges.

"If it (the filibuster) goes away on judges, it soon goes away on everything," he warned the delegates.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took a similar tack, even though his predecessor, South Dakotan Thomas Daschle, lost his re-election bid last year partly because of the Democratic use of the filibusters against Bush's judges:

"This is their attempt to make it impossible for us to speak for the people who sent us here. This is about protecting the Constitution. If they get their way, the Senate will become a rubber stamp for the president, for anything the Right Wing wants - not just judges, but Social Security or anything else."

 

Other legislative priorities speakers from both parties discussed included preserving Social Security, protecting multi-employer pension plans - many of which are in the construction industry - and preserving the Davis-Bacon Act while finally passing the $284 billion 6-year highway-mass transit bill.

"I've had discussions with the White House and with (Republican National Chairman) Ken Mehlman," said Rep. Frank LoBiondo (R-N.J.), co-chair of the GOP Labor Caucus. "He's assured me the president understands the importance of this highway bill having full Davis-Bacon protections, and I'll take him at his word."

Sweeney and Building Trades Department President Edward Sullivan both discussed the ongoing debate over revamping the labor movement, and alluded to - but not by name - Service Employees President Andrew Stern's demands, as part of it, for forced union mergers. The Building Trades strongly oppose that.

"We must make changes with respect to our tradition of democracy," Sweeney said. "We are not a corporation and do not dictate to our members from the top down."

Sullivan said, "Our detractors predict our divisions will lead to implosion" of the labor movement. They're wrong. Political action without organizing will leave us with a shrinking base, and organizing without political action will leave organizers vulnerable."

But some of the changes are already in motion. Teamsters President James Hoffa - a BCTD vice president - said after the session the AFL-CIO is already being streamlined, with 100 staffers being let go. He also said his group, which Stern first led and he now leads, is picking up support for its revamp plan to rebate half of any union's AFL-CIO dues if the union creates a strategic organizing plan.