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The Clinton Administration and Labor Law: Was Comprehensive Reform Ever a Realistic Possibility?

Journal of Labor Research volume 28, pages 609–628 (2007)Cite this article

Abstract

This article analyzes the critical obstacles in the path of labor law reform during the 1990s. It stresses the importance of the lukewarm support of the Clinton Administration for labor law reform, organized labor’s failure to frame the debate on labor law reform to its advantage and its inability to convince key Senators to support its reform agenda, and, especially, the determined opposition to reform of employer groups and their allies in Congress. The article concludes with a brief discussion of the lessons of the legislative defeats of the 1990s for the AFL-CIO’s current campaign to revise the National Labor Relations Act.

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Notes

  1. David B. Burkee, Director of Organization, Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Workers International Union, letter to Elmer Chatak, President, Industrial Union Department, AFL-CIO, December 14, 1992; Lane Kirkland, President, AFL-CIO, letter to William H. Wynn, President, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, December 16, 1992. Unless otherwise, noted, all manuscript sources are from the legislative, organizing, legal and public policy departments of the AFL-CIO, Washington, DC.

  2. Andy Stern, Organizing Director, SEIU, “The Labor Movement and a Clinton Administration—Where Should We Stand,” October 21, 1992.

  3. Elmer Chatak, President, IUD, and Richard Trumka, President, United Mineworkers of America, letter to Honorable John T. Dunlop, March 30, 1994.

  4. Lane Kirkland, President, AFL-CIO, letter to William H. Wynn, President, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, December 12, 1992.

  5. Andy Stern, Organizing Director, SEIU, “The Labor Movement and a Clinton Administration—Where Should We Stand,” October 21, 1992.

  6. Bob Callahan, Assistant Organizing Director, letter to Lynn Williams, International President, United Steelworkers of America, December 23, 1992, original emphasis.

  7. Joe Uehlein, “Draft Workplace Rights Campaign Outline,” May 9, 1994.

  8. Leonard Page, Associate General Counsel, United Auto Workers, letter to Elmer Chatak, Re: IUD Recommendations for Labor Law Reform, September 22, 1993.

  9. John J. Sweeney, International President, Service Employees International Union, letter to Rich Trumka, AFL-CIO Labor Law Reform Committee, December 23, 1992.

  10. The Senate adopted Rule 22, the cloture rule, in 1917. In 1975, Rule 22 was amended to reduce the number of votes required to invoke cloture from two-thirds (67 if every Senator voted) to 60 votes.

  11. Elmer Chatak, letter to Stewart Acuff, Atlanta Labor Council, AFL-CIO, August 30, 1994.

  12. In summer 1976, 17 of the 38 Republicans in the Senate were considered “moderates.” Over the next two decades, conservative Republicans replaced those moderates. In the same period, labor won the support of more southern Democrats. In the June 1978 cloture vote on labor law reform, unions had won the support of only one southern Democratic Senator, James Sasser of Tennessee. In the June 1992 cloture vote on striker replacement, in contrast, unions won the votes of 12 southern Senators. Their biggest disappointment was losing the votes of Arkansas Senators Dale Bumpers and David Pryor. Had Bumpers and Pryor voted for cloture (bringing the total to 59), the AFL-CIO believed that Terry Sanford (R-North Carolina) would have come under significant pressure to deliver the 60th vote, thereby putting the striker replacement bill on President George Bush’s desk.

  13. Although Republicans exercised most filibusters during the Clinton years, several Republicans supported the “Action, Not Gridlock!” campaign. Campaign co-conveners were Carter Secretary of Labor, Ray Marshall, and Eisenhower Secretary of Health and Welfare, Arthur Flemming. Members of the advisory committee included former Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona.

  14. The 103rd Congress (1993/1995) alone saw 55 cloture motions. In the entire nineteenth century, there were only 16 filibusters.

  15. George Kourpias, President, International Association of Machinists, Morton Bahr, President, CWA, Gerald McEntee, President, AFSCME, letter to James Hatfield, President, Glass, Molders, Pottery, Plastics & Allied Workers International Union, March 23, 1994.

  16. Joe Uehlein, “Draft Workplace Rights Campaign Outline,” May 9, 1994.

  17. A poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation found that 80% of registered voters believed that Senators who opposed a bill should not block a vote on it. On health care reform, registered voters opposed filibuster by a margin of 5 to 1. Action, Not Gridlock! “Polling Report: Voter Attitudes Toward a Health Care Filibuster” (August 16, 1994).

  18. On media endorsements, see “Turning Gridlock’s Key” (editorial), Boston Globe, July 29, 1994; “Filibuster Abuse” (editorial), Washington Post, June 26, 1994, C6; and Charles Mathias, “Gridlock, Greedlock or Democracy” (op-ed), Washington Post, June 27, 1994. Just one week earlier, the Post had supported the use of the filibuster to defeat the striker replacement bill. The group also gained endorsements in the Minneapolis Star–Tribune, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Sacramento Bee, Miami Herald, Fort Worth Star–Telegram, and San Diego Union–Tribune.

  19. Satement of Senator William S. Cohen on S. 55, May 6, 1994.

  20. Joe Uehlein, “Draft Workplace Rights Campaign Outline,” May 9, 1994, original emphasis.

  21. William H. Wynn, President, United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, letter to Laurence S. Gold, General Counsel, AFL-CIO, January 12, 1993; William H. Wynn, letter to Elmer Chatak, December 11, 1992; William H. Wynn, letter to Lane Kirkland, December 8, 1992.

  22. Between 1981–1990, Bumpers had received consistently high marks from the AFL-CIO for his voting record in the Senate. Bumpers had scored over 70% in seven on those years, and had voted for the AFL-CIO’s position on 90% of Senate bills in 1989. Pryor enjoyed support from unions early in his political career (which was a major issue in his primary victory over Senator John L. McClellan in 1972) but lost labor support during his tenure as governor, when he used the National Guard to replace striking Pine Bluff firemen.

  23. Sandi Polaski, Service Employees International Union, Memo to Elmer Chatak, Peter DiCicco, Kevin Murphy, IUD, AFL-CIO, Re: Rhode Island Campaign on S.55, April 11, 1994; Sandi Polaski, Memo to Elmer Chatak, Peter DiCicco, and Kevin Murphy, May 2, 1994; Robert M. McGlotten, Director, Department of Legislation, AFL-CIO, Memo to State Federations, Regional Directors, COPE Regional Directors, Central Labor Councils, AFL-CIO, Re: S.55 Vote, May 24, 1994.

  24. The Worker Representation and Participation Survey, conducted by Richard Freeman and Joel Rogers in 1994, more or less under the aegis of the Dunlop Commission, had revealed similar results on employee attitudes. 53 percent of respondents believed that workers’ right to form unions were too weak, while 24% believed that legal restrictions were too onerous.

  25. David Silberman, AFL-CIO, memo to Thomas Donahue and Charles McDonald, RE: Results of Hart Poll, January 21, 1994; Geoff Garin and Guy Molyneux, “Public Attitudes Toward Unions: Summary of Research Findings” (January 1994).

  26. Joe Uehlein, “Draft Workplace Rights Campaign Outline,” May 9, 1994.

  27. Larry Cohen, Organizing Director, CWA, memo to Joe Uehlein, AFL-CIO, December 18, 1992.

  28. After the defeat of the striker replacement bill, Clinton signed into law an executive order prohibiting companies that had hired permanent replacements from receiving federal government contracts, but the D.C. Circuit Court subsequently ruled it pre-empted by federal labor law. Chamber of Commerce v. Reich, 74 F. 3d 1322, 1334 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

  29. Bob Welsh, AFL-CIO, Memo to John J. Sweeney, Re: Labor Law Reform, August 1, 2002.

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Acknowledgment

I thank David Brody, John Delaney, Tom Donahue, Fred Feinstein, Doug Fraser, John Godard, Sanford Jacoby, Bruce Kaufman, Greg Patmore, Craig Phelan, Daphne Taras, and Paula Voos for reading earlier versions of this article. I especially thank Tom Kochan for extensive comments and James Bennett for editorial suggestions.

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  1. London School of Economics and Political Science, London, WC2A 2AE, UK

    John Logan

  2. Department of Employment Relations and Personnel Management, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland

    John Logan

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Correspondence to John Logan.

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Logan, J. The Clinton Administration and Labor Law: Was Comprehensive Reform Ever a Realistic Possibility?. J Labor Res 28, 609–628 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12122-007-9016-z

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