WASHINGTON (AP) - On a cold overcast morning in January,
President Barack Obama briefly delayed his departure for an Iowa day-trip to
huddle in the Oval Office with AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and United Auto
Workers President Dennis Williams. The topic was Obama's upcoming State of the
Union address.
A week earlier, Obama had invited Mary Kay Henry,
president of the Service Employees International Union, and Leo Gerard of the
United Steelworkers, to fly with him to Michigan aboard Air Force One.
It was VIP treatment for leaders of a labor movement
whose relationship with Obama had never been close and at times had been
downright chilly.
Now Obama is stepping up his calls for trade agreements
with Asia and Europe, driving yet another wedge into the relationship by
angering unions who fear the deals will mean job losses at home.
Eager to keep that anger to a quiet simmer, Obama in his
meetings with labor leaders highlighted an economic pitch straight out of the
labor policy handbook.
By the time he addressed a joint session of Congress days
later, he had tucked in a shout-out to unions the likes of which labor had
seldom heard in a State of the Union speech:
"We still need laws that strengthen, rather than
weaken, unions and give American workers a voice," Obama said.
For labor it was a welcome sentiment from a president
whom many union leaders faulted for not pushing for greater bargaining rights
early in his presidency when he had Democratic majorities in the House and the
Senate.
The fight over trade, however, is already steeling
labor-allied Democrats in the House against giving Obama the kind of fast-track
authority he wants to push trade deals through Congress. If Obama were to
succeed, trade deals won with Republican support could depress union votes,
with potential consequences for former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham
Clinton if she decides to run for president.
"He has addressed our raising-wages agenda. He has
been talking about middle-class economics, about jobs. He talked in his State
of the Union about making unions stronger, not weaker," said Bill Samuel,
the director of government affairs at the AFL-CIO. "If you look at the
policies from minimum wage, paid sick days, overtime, paid family and medical
leave - these all appeal to the working-class families we represent."
"Clearly the one area where we continue to have a
very deep disagreement is over trade. And President Trumka has spoken directly
to the president about it, more than once," Samuel added. "We don't
always agree, and when we don't, Rich is not bashful about telling the
president we disagree."
Obama has pleased labor with his appointments to the
National Labor Relations Board and other regulatory agencies. He has pushed for
an increase in the minimum wage, and he has directed the Labor Department to
adopt new rules that make more workers eligible for time-and-a-half overtime.
But his broader economic proposals are not likely to win
success in the new Republican-controlled Congress, whereas his trade policies
have significant support within the GOP.
Moreover, the trade fight comes as unions already feel
embattled over efforts in a number of states to weaken their ability to organize.
Labor's list of grievances with the Obama administration
begin with his failure to press for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act in
2009 when Democrats controlled the House and he had a filibuster-proof
Democratic majority in the Senate. The legislation would have made it easier
for workers to join unions, a top priority for labor whose overall membership
numbers have steadily slipped.
They've also objected to a provision in Obama's health
care law that will tax the kind of low-deductible, high-benefits health
insurance policies that many unions have negotiated in lieu of higher wages.
And they weren't happy that Obama's second Democratic National Convention was
held in the right-to-work state of North Carolina.
"There's never really been a really deep
relationship there," said Steve Rosenthal, a former AFL-CIO political
director and former labor official in the Clinton administration who works
closely with the labor movement. "I think now it's a peaceful coexistence.
Now there is a sense, he's kind of the last line of defense against the
Republican assault."
While the objections from labor to Obama's trade push
have been loud and constant, the labor movement is not monolithic. While unions
will speak with one voice against trade deals, such agreements have less of
impact on organizations representing teachers or other government employees.
"Public employee unions tend to have more skin in
the minimum wage game than in the trade game," said William Galston, a
former domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton.
Still, passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement
over labor opposition in late 1993 has been blamed for a decrease in voter
participation by union households in the 1994 mid-term elections. Unions like
the AFL-CIO punished Democrats by cutting back on their political funding.
Moreover, states with the largest union memberships
include presidential battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio.
"A big trade fight now can't be helpful in terms of
union participation in the next election," Rosenthal said. "There
will be some unions that will be extremely worried about jobs and trade, and
Secretary Clinton is going to have to deal with that."
Source: Philly.com
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