Workers have a friend in Obama

Eve Tahmincioglu • Profile • E-mail

President Barack Obama might as well be wearing a cape and have a big “W” on his chest that stands for worker.

He swept into office with a host of ambitious labor-friendly proposals and has already begun to set many in motion. Labor advocates believe he’ll do more for worker rights than any president in the past few decades.

“Workers finally have a friend in the White House,” says Robert Trumble, professor of management and director of Virginia Commonwealth University’s labor studies center. Under the Bush administration, he adds, “we saw a regression of worker rights.”

“Obama cares about working families in this country,” says Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union. “He ran on a campaign of reclaiming the American dream.”

The question is how far can Obama take his pro-worker promises — everything from federally mandating paid sick time to making it easier for workers to unionize — during bleak economic times and facing a highly partisan Congress.

The new president has a tough battle ahead, but bad economies tend to engender “sympathy and empathy” for the working stiffs, Trumble says, and that will go a long way in swaying public opinion to support Obama’s agenda.

Signing worker-friendly bills
It’s been less than two months, but Obama has wasted little worker superhero time.

• The first bill Obama signed into law was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, countering the Supreme Court’s decision in 2007 to put time limits on how long an employee has to claim they were paid less because of gender, race, religion, etc.

That’s what happened to Lilly Ledbetter, for whom the bill is named. She was a longtime supervisor at Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.’s plant in Gadsden, Ala., and she came to suspect she was underpaid compared to her male counterparts. No one disputed her claims, but the company made a case that she had waited too long to report the discrimination.

Upon signing the bill, Obama said: “It is upholding one of this nation's founding principles: that we are all created equal, and each deserve a chance to pursue our own version of happiness.”

• One day after signing the Ledbetter bill, Obama signed several executive orders reversing Bush administration policies that were seen to be anti-worker and anti-union when it comes to federal contracting.

The first order reversed a Bush administration rule that only informed workers on federal jobs of their rights not to join a union, sort of like a union abstinence-only rule. Now employees will be told about their rights not to join but also their rights as they relate to joining a union.

The second order would require that rank-and-file employees who worked on a government-contracted job be offered a position when a new contractor comes in.

And the final measure would prohibit contractors from being reimbursed for money they spent trying to squash union or collective-bargaining activity among their workers.

• The stimulus bill, even though watered down, has a host of benefits for working people, beyond the most direct boon of creating jobs through infrastructure projects.

1. It offers a 60 percent subsidy for nine months to help unemployed individuals pay health insurance premiums under the COBRA program.

2. It provides an additional 20 weeks of unemployment payments for the jobless and an additional $25 in each paycheck.

3. The first $2,400 of jobless benefits will be exempted from federal taxes.

4. There’s also a $400-per-worker tax credit, for workers making less than $75,000.

• Obama’s choice for labor secretary has received a big round of applause from labor advocates — and a big thumbs down from business.

Hilda Solis, a Democratic congresswoman from California, is well known for her pro-labor fervor.

“She has worked for the rights of poor and disenfranchised workers; to increase minimum wages; for workers’ rights to unionize and expect fair treatment, benefits and wages; and for green jobs,” says Myrtle Bell, associate professor of management at the University of Texas at Arlington.

A committee voted Wednesday to send Solis' nomination to the full Senate for confirmation.

Republican members of Congress have been dragging their feet on her nomination, citing her pro-union stance and tax issues related to her husband.

This type of partisan bickering will be on stage big time as Obama tries to hoist many of his other labor-friendly initiatives onto the business community, says Trumble.

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