Labor and business focus more on the Obama administration than Congress

Organized labor and business will spend most of the year focused on the Obama administration, and pay less attention to Congress.

With top labor legislative priorities stalled on Capitol Hill, both sides are turning more to the executive branch for smaller fights over proposed appointments and regulations. That will require more of a ground game of Washington-insider lobbying this year and less of the attention-grabbing campaign rallies and fly-in visits staged by both unions and business groups in 2009.

Glenn Spencer, executive director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Workforce Freedom Institute, said the biggest debates between labor and business will take place with the administration this year. The Chamber executive said the debate over the union-backed Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), also known as card-check, was “kind of like Pickett’s Charge.”

In Spencer’s Civil War reference, organized labor is the Confederate Army and business represents the Union.

“What is going to happen now is more like the Union’s blockade of the South. It is much less dramatic but far more effective,” Spencer said.

Harley Shaiken, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, is not surprised by the opposition to regulatory changes normally below the radar. But the labor expert said it was vital that the White House stick to its guns in order to promote workers’ rights.

“Each of these are important because of the kind of opposition they are attracting. Nothing is free here. They all come with high political cost,” said Shaiken, once considered a possible Labor Secretary for the Obama administration. “It is going to take a strong, visible approach by the executive branch to speak out for the rights of working Americans.”

The labor movement has already won some successes through the executive branch. During the first few months of the new administration, President Barack Obama signed a series of executive orders to promote federal contracting with unionized firms. Further, the AFL-CIO’s Transportation Trades Department successfully lobbied the National Mediation Board to change the union election process at airline companies, which will likely boost union membership.

Business did win a big fight this year, helping defeat the nomination of Craig Becker, a labor lawyer, to the National Labor Relations Board.

But despite Becker not securing Senate confirmation, expect more lobbying centered on the board’s appointments in 2010. He could still be recess-appointed by Obama. Further, two key positions at the labor board — general counsel and the seat of Republican board member Peter Schaumber — will open up in August and require Senate confirmation.

And much like the campaign against Becker got off to a slow start, grumbling by business groups is getting louder against a proposed executive order reportedly under discussion by administration officials.

Known as the “High Road” order, it is a series of proposals that would give companies that bid on federal contracts a higher score when they pay workers higher wages, provide health insurance, fund retirement plans and offer paid sick leave.

The proposed order has the support of major unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

“It is essential that if our economy is going to recover, we need to create good jobs and pay workers better wages. We need to put money in people’s pockets,” Michelle Ringuette, an SEIU spokeswoman, said.

But business groups are alarmed at the measure’s possible effect on the contracting process.

“This is an attempt to enforce a broad social agenda across 25 percent of the workforce by rigging the contracting process. Even the government officials scoring the contracts think this idea is unwarranted,” Spencer said.

The proposed order has begun to attract Republican opposition as well. Several GOP senators, led by Susan Collins (R-Maine), ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, expressed alarm at the proposal in letters to White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag.

Collins said the proposal could hurt small-business contractors and asked for a detailed briefing from administration officials.

Orszag called Collins to discuss the proposed order earlier this week, according to the Maine senator.

“We had a good discussion of my concerns, and Director Orszag told me that I would be briefed before the administration made any major change,” Collins said in a statement to The Hill.

An OMB spokesman said the administration is happy to brief lawmakers but attention to the proposal was “premature” since no decision had been made as of yet.

Tom Gavin, the OMB spokesman, said any new contracting policy “will support the president’s agenda to reform government contracting in ways that will save taxpayers money while protecting workers and ensuring that we do business only with firms that follow tax, labor and environmental regulations.”

Both labor groups and business associations are also keeping a close eye on the Federal Register, too, as new regulations began to pop up under guidance from Obama’s labor-friendly appointees.

For example, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) announced a rulemaking in January to expand worker injury reports from employers.

The change would require companies to record on the injury reports when their employees suffer a musculoskeletal disorder.

The Chamber is already worried that this proposed rule is laying the foundation to reinstitute an ergonomics standard, which was first introduced in the late days of the Clinton administration and took years to beat back.

Another regulatory change that could set off a business-labor fight is a move by the Labor Department that could affect union organizing. According to the department’s 2009 fall regulatory agenda, officials hope to expand fee-disclosure requirements for anti-union consultants and law firms hired by businesses.

The rulemaking process for the change could begin in November this year.

Though relatively minor in comparison to card-check, the regulations matter because they show an administration working the gears of government for workers’ rights, according to Shaiken. They are key to keeping the labor movement a potent electoral force and in the Democrats’ tent, said the union expert.

“The president maintains good will with labor, but that is not the same as infinite good will. The kind of vital, engaged, more urgent approach to these issues seems to be lacking in the minds of some labor leaders,” Shaiken said. “In the Great Depression, there was no doubt where Roosevelt stood.”

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