Labor Increases Obama Tactics Cooper Tire-to-walmart Companies Rue
Theres a common thread running through these developments. Organized labor is gaining momentum under the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama.
Though reaching their most-publicized goals — legislation making it easier to organize and a government-run health insurance program — remains in doubt, unions are making other gains through executive orders, rule changes and appointments. More advances may be ahead as regulatory nominees are confirmed.
“You absolutely know something is going to happen to you, you just dont know when,” said Michael Lotito, a San Francisco attorney at Jackson Lewis LLP who handles labor issues for companies. “There is going to be a flurry of labor action down the pike.”
Their status is a change for labor officials, who say the Republican administration of George W. Bush was hostile to their agenda. “Welcome back to the White House!” Vice President Joe Biden said to union leaders who met with the president at the White House 10 days after his inauguration.
John Sweeney, 75, who headed the AFL-CIO for 14 years before stepping aside last month, says he was invited to the White House once during Bushs eight years in office. That was at the request of visiting Pope Benedict XVI, he says. The AFL- CIO is the nations largest union group.
Wandering in Wilderness
Richard Trumka, 60, Sweeneys successor, says he meets monthly with Obama, and that union representatives have “daily contacts throughout the administration.” Obama officials visit with labor leaders “frequently,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
“After eight years wandering in the wilderness, unions have unprecedented access to the White House, and early directives and appointments have been encouraging for them,” said Harley Shaiken, a labor relations professor at the University of California at Berkley.
Unions were among Obamas biggest supporters in the 2008 election, with 68 percent of AFL-CIO members voting for him in so-called battleground states, according to an election night poll by Peter Hart Research Associates. Labor unions and their political action committees spent a record $450 million during the campaign to help Democrats win the White House and gain control of Congress.
Obama sided with the United Steelworkers last month against tire makers such as Cooper Tire and imposed 35 percent tariffs on tires imported from China. Bush rejected putting tariffs on Chinese products all four times the issue came before him.
Cooper Tire
“Its certainly been more difficult,” said Michelle Zeisloft, a spokeswoman for Findlay, Ohio-based Cooper. She declined to elaborate. Because of the tariffs, Cooper went from breaking even on imported tires to losing $14.50 on each one, according to a Sept. 21 report by JPMorgan Chase & Co.
“This was done to support a fairly small pool of union workers,” Bill Trimarco, chief executive officer of closely held Hercules Tire & Rubber Co., also based in Findlay, said in an interview. “They won at the expense of companies like ours.”
Complaints from business about union gains are an affront to workers, said Leo Gerard, president of the United Steelworkers.
Thats Pablum
“All those victories they are talking about — thats pablum from those bastards,” Gerard, 62, said in an interview. “All were doing is standing up for jobs.”
The Steelworkers also pressed for the “Buy American” provision included in Obamas $787 billion economic stimulus program adopted in February. Obamas bailout of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC saved jobs of United Auto Workers members, and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters claimed victory when Congress scrapped in March a pilot program allowing Mexican trucks to deliver products in the U.S.
“Unions have accomplished a lot with the administration in less than a year,” said Clayton Boyce, a spokesman for the American Trucking Associations in Arlington, Virginia. The trade groups members include United Parcel Service Inc., FedEx Corp. and YRC Worldwide, Inc., the biggest U.S. trucking company by sales.