(The following article by Ann McFeatters appeared on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s website on May 29.)
WASHINGTON — The war of words between the Bush administration and labor unions ratcheted up yesterday with Labor Secretary Elaine Chao telling reporters that top union leadership is filled with vitriol and refuses to work with her.
Some labor officials, she said, won’t even meet with her. But she refused to be more specific or to identify any of the labor officials she was describing.
Some AFL-CIO executive council members have said this is one of the most anti-labor administrations in U.S. history.
Asked how she plans to repair the damage with organized labor, she said, “I am always so surprised — well, not surprised, but frustrated — when I hear that question.” She went on, “I can’t work with them if they don’t want to work with me.”
The AFL-CIO, she said, does not have “an open mind” toward the Bush administration. She said individual union leaders don’t have to go through the federation of unions to meet with her and that they have unprecedented access to her as head of the Department of Labor.
She insisted that the relationship “has to be a two-way street,” but said, “there are some organized labor leaders who won’t meet with me.”
Noting that organized labor now represents only 12 percent of the work force, Chao said the “confrontational manner” she accuses labor leaders of having means there is “less incentive to have unions in the workplace,” and that employers don’t want to deal with them.
She accused the AFL-CIO Web site of fostering some of the most “vitriolic,” “slanderous” and “barbed” rhetoric she said she has ever come across. She also called labor’s rhetoric “exaggerated” and “overheated.” Organized labor is conducting a “disinformation campaign” against the administration, the secretary said, adding: “It doesn’t help the relationship when there is such heated rhetoric.”
Union officials say the administration is anti-worker because it opposes a minimum-wage increase, proposes to limit pension guarantees, has cut back some health and safety measures, fought unionization among federal workers and wants new rules on overtime.
Creation of the new Department of Homeland Security was held up in Congress for weeks because unions opposed the administration’s plan to deny employees of the new department collective bargaining rights and civil service protections. But the unions lost that battle. Bush and Republicans won last year’s congressional elections in part by attacking Democrats who voted for such protections and delayed the homeland security department’s launch.
The current AFL-CIO Web site postings include such declarations as these: “Millionaires win under tax bill passed by Congress.” “Working families mobilize to stop Bush’s attack on overtime pay.”
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has met many times with Chao. In response to a question about his relations with the Bush administration, he said a few days ago: “It’s important that Americans understand the impact of the administration’s policies on working families. Their ripple effect is devastating. I hope by the end of 2004 we’ll see some changes.”
That, said Chao, who comes from a business background, shows the bias of organized labor, because “90 percent” of its political efforts and money go to Democrats.
The impasse between the labor secretary and the labor federation reached its low point in February, when she spoke at a closed-door session of the AFL-CIO executive council. “I thought I made a very nice speech,” she said yesterday. “I thought it was a very conciliatory and friendly speech. I was completely floored by press reports.”
Labor officials exiting the speech were enraged, saying she had vowed to impose new disclosure requirements on unions’ political activities, which they regarded as a politicized misuse of regulatory authority, and she seemed to imply that unions’ political activities and spending were linked to past corruption by some labor leaders. Even the Bush administration’s best friend in organized labor, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, was infuriated.