By Neil H. Simon
Media General News Service
Media General News Service
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WASHINGTON—Labor advocates and business leaders are turning up the heat on freshman Sen. Mark Warner, a self-described “radical centrist.”
At issue is the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for workers to form unions, even in traditionally right-to-work states like Virginia and much of the South.
Labor and business groups both plan to descend on the Virginia Democrat’s office today and throughout the month to lobby for his support. Warner, a former governor of Virginia, has not taken a public stance on the issue.
Warner does support letting the Senate vote on the bill. In the last Congress, Democrats fell nine votes short of the 60 needed to force a vote on the issue. This year, 58 senators vote with the Democratic leadership. President Barack Obama supports the legislation. The bill is to be reintroduced in the House and Senate Tuesday.
Under the bill, workers would be able to fill out cards expressing support for a union. Once a majority at a business signs up, the cards would be verified by the National Labor Relations Board, and the company would have to recognize the union.
Currently, 30 percent of workers must fill out cards calling for a union election, and then an election date is set.
“This [bill] is organizing on the cheap, and you don’t have an election date,” said U.S. Chamber of Commerce general counsel Steven Law.
The chamber, which endorsed Warner in 2008, sees the Free Choice Act as the first key vote of Warner’s Senate career.
“This issue will be the acid test of Senator Warner’s pro-business credentials going forward,” Law said.
Warner was unavailable to be interviewed for this article, said spokesman Kevin Hall, who called the issue “a complicated one” for the senator.
“He believes that the [labor relations] system has gotten out of whack, especially in the past administration,” Hall said.
The two million-member Service Employees International Union, is working to keep newly elected congressional Democrats behind the union cause. The SEIU is bringing in hundreds of workers from 30 states to lobby.
“It’s a matter of smart business sense to give workers the ability to spend again and have workers with good wages and secure benefits,” said SEIU spokeswoman Karen Backus.
But in Virginia, the third least-unionized state (behind North Carolina and Georgia), business leaders hope to maintain their close relationship with Warner, a businessman-turned-politician
“We are concerned about his ambiguity,” said Virginia chamber president Hugh Keogh.
The chamber, also putting pressure on lawmakers, is bringing in business leaders from Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and seven other states.
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., supports the Free Choice Act. North Carolina’s new Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan also supports it.
Warner spokesman Hall said “this is a tough one to bridge.” Warner has left the door open to playing a compromise role to improve the bill, Hall said.
The wrong step could have major political consequences for Warner, an analyst said.
Vote for the bill and he loses his business constituency; vote against it and any national ambitions as a Democrat could be off the table, said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “It’s a lose-lose unless he can create a win with a compromise.”
(E-mail nsimon@mediageneral.com)
At issue is the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that would make it easier for workers to form unions, even in traditionally right-to-work states like Virginia and much of the South.
Labor and business groups both plan to descend on the Virginia Democrat’s office today and throughout the month to lobby for his support. Warner, a former governor of Virginia, has not taken a public stance on the issue.
Warner does support letting the Senate vote on the bill. In the last Congress, Democrats fell nine votes short of the 60 needed to force a vote on the issue. This year, 58 senators vote with the Democratic leadership. President Barack Obama supports the legislation. The bill is to be reintroduced in the House and Senate Tuesday.
Under the bill, workers would be able to fill out cards expressing support for a union. Once a majority at a business signs up, the cards would be verified by the National Labor Relations Board, and the company would have to recognize the union.
Currently, 30 percent of workers must fill out cards calling for a union election, and then an election date is set.
“This [bill] is organizing on the cheap, and you don’t have an election date,” said U.S. Chamber of Commerce general counsel Steven Law.
The chamber, which endorsed Warner in 2008, sees the Free Choice Act as the first key vote of Warner’s Senate career.
“This issue will be the acid test of Senator Warner’s pro-business credentials going forward,” Law said.
Warner was unavailable to be interviewed for this article, said spokesman Kevin Hall, who called the issue “a complicated one” for the senator.
“He believes that the [labor relations] system has gotten out of whack, especially in the past administration,” Hall said.
The two million-member Service Employees International Union, is working to keep newly elected congressional Democrats behind the union cause. The SEIU is bringing in hundreds of workers from 30 states to lobby.
“It’s a matter of smart business sense to give workers the ability to spend again and have workers with good wages and secure benefits,” said SEIU spokeswoman Karen Backus.
But in Virginia, the third least-unionized state (behind North Carolina and Georgia), business leaders hope to maintain their close relationship with Warner, a businessman-turned-politician
“We are concerned about his ambiguity,” said Virginia chamber president Hugh Keogh.
The chamber, also putting pressure on lawmakers, is bringing in business leaders from Virginia, North Carolina, Florida and seven other states.
Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., supports the Free Choice Act. North Carolina’s new Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan also supports it.
Warner spokesman Hall said “this is a tough one to bridge.” Warner has left the door open to playing a compromise role to improve the bill, Hall said.
The wrong step could have major political consequences for Warner, an analyst said.
Vote for the bill and he loses his business constituency; vote against it and any national ambitions as a Democrat could be off the table, said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “It’s a lose-lose unless he can create a win with a compromise.”
(E-mail nsimon@mediageneral.com)