Union official: Don’t wait on ‘card-check’

Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO’s chief lobbyist, said Congress should move on a contentious union bill soon and not hope for a better political climate after the 2010 midterm elections.

“I think it would be a mistake to wait. We don’t know what the outcome of the 2010 election will be. We don’t know what the political situation is going to be in the Congress or the United States in 2010,” Samuel told The Hill.

{mosads}As the head of the lobbying operation for the AFL-CIO, an 11 million-member union federation, Samuel is one of the most prominent lobbyists behind the push for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The battle over the bill, which would make union organizing for workers much easier, has been one of the most intense this Congress, with the labor movement squaring off against a number of business groups.

Republicans may be reeling now, but Samuel believes Senate races in traditional blue states, such as Illinois and Delaware, could become competitive and shake up the power structure on Capitol Hill. If Republicans were able to surprise with victories in those elections, that would leave unions with fewer supporters to move the bill in the next Congress.

But support for the legislation has faltered of late. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, then a Republican, said in a floor speech in March that he decided to vote against cloture on the bill, reversing himself on his vote last Congress. Speaking to reporters Tuesday after announcing he was switching parties, Specter said he still opposed the bill.

With Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) also indicating her opposition, unions would be at least two votes short of the necessary 60 to beat back a Senate filibuster, even if Al Franken fends off a legal challenge and becomes Minnesota’s next senator as expected.

But Samuel contends that Specter’s decision to switch his affiliation has breathed new life into the legislation because it frees him from any commitment to Republican Party, which tends to side with business over labor.

“In his mind, he wants fundamental labor law reform,” Samuel said. “He wants things to improve for workers. As a Democrat, he could get a lot closer than as a Republican.”

The party switch could also help the senior Pennsylvania senator in his 2010 election bid. Labor unions from the Keystone State were flirting with endorsing Specter but backed off once he moved against EFCA, which is also known as “card-check.” Now that discussion is back on the table, according to Samuel.

“It reopens a dialogue with the Pennsylvania labor movement that had become harder and harder to continue,” he said.

The AFL-CIO, which aggressively supported candidates who endorsed the pro-labor bill, has not let up in its campaign for the legislation in the months after the November election. The union’s organizing efforts included 400 events, 27,000 letters to Congress and almost 100,000 phone calls to lawmakers’ offices during the Easter recess alone in support of EFCA.

Samuel has the experience to know when to push for a bill. A White Plains, N.Y., native, Samuel has had a long affiliation with the labor movement. His father was vice president of Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union, and Samuel has been lobbying for unions off and on for three decades, including the United Mine Workers of America and the National Treasury Employees Union.

{mospagebreak}“Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Samuel joked.

Samuel also served in the Clinton administration as a labor policy adviser to Vice President Al Gore and as associate deputy secretary of Labor.

That time served has won him respect from other labor champions.

{mosads}“We have worked together a number of years and he just performs,” said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “He gets assigned some difficult tasks and he does the job.”

Working for unions and in the Clinton Labor Department reinforced Samuel’s faith in collective bargaining and, consequently, his lobbying for EFCA.

“This is really part of rebalancing our economy. We don’t think it is an accident that wages have stagnated for two decades,” Samuel said. “Businesses have become so powerful, and workers have had to take a backseat.”

Business associations have lobbied heavily against the bill primarily because of two of its provisions.

One measure would allow workers to bypass secret-ballot elections to form a union if a majority of them sign petition cards stating their intention to organize. The other provision would have the government appoint an arbitrator to settle contract negotiations between unions and management. Both of those measures would lead to more strikes and cause industry’s revenues to fall, business groups argue.

Samuel said the White House, despite having a Democratic president who co-sponsored the bill in the Senate, has not been involved in “the day-to-day” or the “shadow-boxing” between business and labor on the bill.

“I think as the bill gets further along in the process, they are going to need to do more, but I think they will,” Samuel said.

Overall, Samuel said he has been impressed by early victories the administration has won, such as the $787 billion stimulus package and other bills key to the labor movement, like the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

And Samuel sees more opportunity down the road to work with President Obama. Down the hallway from Samuel’s office is a frame containing 100 pens used by President Lyndon Johnson to sign bills lobbied on by the AFL-CIO — everything from the Civil Rights Act to Medicare.

The labor lobbyist thinks Obama could match that achievement and then some.

“We will make the frame as large as we have to,” Samuel said.