In Florida, G.O.P. Help for Unions

But now it looks as if the bill could falter before the legislative session ends next week. Unions representing teachers, firefighters, the police and other public employees say they have persuaded nearly half of the Senate’s Republicans to oppose the bill by reminding them that in Florida, far more than in most states, organized labor has supported Republicans.

“We have traditionally been a Republican-based organization,” said James Preston, president of the Florida Fraternal Order of Police. “How much more conservative can you get than the police officers? Who wants to go against the cops and firefighters on these matters?”

Still, the unions’ success is surprising, especially since Republican lawmakers in traditionally labor-friendly states like Wisconsin and Ohio have passed far tougher antiunion legislation this year. In Florida, just one in 20 of workers in the state belongs to a union.

By some counts, 12 of the 28 Republican senators are against the latest version of Mr. Thrasher’s bill, which would require public employee unions to get each member’s permission each year before they could use that person’s dues for political purposes. Senate Democrats are unified in opposition to the bill. Republican and business leaders — noting that Florida’s state employees contribute nothing toward their pensions — have praised Mr. Thrasher’s bill because it would reduce unions’ leverage over health coverage and pensions.

“These are government unions that are negotiating oftentimes against the taxpayers,” said Mark Wilson, president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce. “It’s not fair that the taxpayer-funded payroll system is collecting union dues that are used politically against the taxpayer.”

But Senator Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, a Republican representing Miami, said the bill was too punitive. “I don’t think it’s necessary legislation,” he said. “It doesn’t do anything to create jobs. It creates a lot of discord unnecessarily.”

He said the fact that unions in Florida were weak had forced them to be bipartisan. Using Wisconsin as an example, he said, “You just don’t have the animus between union and antiunion here that you have in some other places.”

Indeed, some of the bill’s Republican opponents have enjoyed labor’s campaign support and worked with unions on numerous issues.

Mr. Thrasher’s bill originally had two main provisions. In addition to requiring members’ permission for using dues money for politics, the legislation would have barred the state or any community from deducting union dues from workers’ paychecks and forwarding that money to unions.

Union lobbyists repeatedly said the bill would cripple the payroll deductions that fuel labor’s political efforts while continuing to allow similar deductions at 360 organizations and private companies, including insurers, that spend money on politics.

Unions also said they were being scapegoated for Florida’s budget problems. They argued that the recession and Wall Street, not union-negotiated pay and benefits, caused Florida’s $3.6 billion deficit.

Those arguments resonated with lawmakers.

Rene Garcia, a Republican senator who represents Hialeah, said he saw little need for the bill because Florida’s public employees were already not required to join the unions that represent them or to pay dues. “I don’t like this bill because it’s not fair when you single out one group,” he said.

Mr. Thrasher, former chairman of the Florida Republican Party, saw that he did not have the votes for his original legislation even though the House had already passed a similar bill. So he dropped the provision eliminating the dues check-off.

Mr. Thrasher did not respond to interview requests. But Senator Don Gaetz, a Republican from Destin, said the bill was revised to make clear that it did not intend to cripple unions.

“There’s no intent to stop unions from using funds for other very legitimate purposes,” he said. “The issue is, should the taxpayers of Florida be collecting money from public employees to be used by a union for direct partisan purposes? And the answer to that is no.”

Unions continue to fight the watered-down bill. “It could make unions in Florida a toothless tiger in politics,” said Rich Templin, chief lobbyist for the state A.F.L.-C.I.O.

In a sign that the bill is in trouble, Governor Rick Scott, a Republican, personally lobbied four Republican senators on Wednesday to back it, according to Mr. Diaz de la Portilla.

Gary Rainey, president of the Florida Professional Firefighters, said there was not enough Senate support to pass the bill in an up-or-down vote. But he feared that Republican leaders would secure passage by attaching it to another bill.

“It’s been a continuous battle shoring up support,” he said. “It’s not over until the fat lady sings.”

 

Civic Group Says That Concessions Are Needed From the Construction Unions

 

A prominent civic group has joined builders and real estate executives in calling for major concessions from the unions that dominate the construction industry, saying cuts are needed to allow major projects to move forward.

The group, the Regional Plan Association, is supported by corporations, including some connected to real estate, and by planning groups in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. It is a respected organization known more for advocacy on transportation issues and large public works than for taking sides in labor matters.

But the association has quietly circulated a 51-page report saying that the expiration of 30 union contracts in June presents a chance to reform the $25 billion unionized construction industry by eliminating what the report calls obsolete work rules and featherbedding; by adopting a standard eight-hour day for all building trades; and by reducing benefit packages.

Members of the association are scheduled to present the report, “Construction Labor Costs in New York City — A Moment of Opportunity,” to Deputy Mayors Stephen Goldsmith and Robert K. Steel on Monday.

“Given the wrenching changes in the real estate industry since the recession,” said Robert Yaro, the president of the Regional Plan Association, “a growing number of builders have found that they can no longer support high labor costs.”

“This is not about what union workers are paid,” he added. “It’s about work rules and productivity. Those are things that should be changed.”

The labor negotiations come at a critical time for the construction industry, as a growing number of buildings in the city are being constructed with cheaper, nonunion labor.

The Building Trades Employers’ Association, a group that represents contractors, has paid for subway advertisements and a Web site directly appealing to union members to agree to concessions, angering union leadership in the process.

This month, 400 union construction workers held a noisy protest outside the Taj Pierre Hotel as Sam Zell, founder of Equity Residential Properties, arrived for a speaking engagement. Mr. Zell’s company is building an apartment building at 500 West 23rd Street with nonunion labor.

The construction unions dismissed the report, saying its authors were antagonistic to labor unions. They were referring to Julia Vitullo-Martin and Hope Cohen, former associates of the conservative Manhattan Institute who now work at the Regional Plan Association and prepared the report.

“So individuals with longstanding right-wing, anti-worker associations and views want to blame labor for our economic problems,” said Paul Fernandes, a spokesman for Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council, a union umbrella group.

“This draft report is rife with factual errors and omissions that reveal its underlying ideology,” he added.

“The only thing missing from this piece of garbage is the Koch brothers and the governor of Wisconsin.”

The once cordial relationship between Mr. LaBarbera, whose group represents about 100,000 workers, and Louis J. Coletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association, has become strained. Mr. LaBarbera “won’t sit in the same room with Coletti,” said a union lawyer who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Real estate and construction executives said they were not trying to create a “Wisconsin,” referring to political efforts in Wisconsin and elsewhere to strip union workers of bargaining rights.

“This is about saving the industry,” Mr. Yaro said. “It is by no means an attack on the unions.”

The Real Estate Board of New York, a powerful lobbying group that represents most of the city’s residential and commercial developers, the contractors’ group and now the Regional Plan Association have conducted a campaign to enlist City Hall, in the hope that the mayor would use his influence on their behalf. But the Bloomberg administration has thus far seemed unwilling to insert itself into the labor dispute.

The association’s report says developers and owners, who absorbed the higher costs of union labor during the real estate boom, are now under pressure to cut costs because of lower rents and stringent financing terms.

But the report also says that leading developers and contractors are attached to union construction work, in part because “the best union labor continues to surpass nonunion in skills and productivity,” and because the jobs provide “a key channel of upward mobility for millions of Americans.”

The report describes as archaic various provisions that unions have succeeded in keeping around, in contracts that were also signed by employers.

These include the required presence of master mechanics and oilers for heavy equipment like cranes, which have become technologically advanced enough that the mechanics and oilers have very little work to do; and rules that say steamfitters, electricians and plumbers must always be around to monitor heat, electricity and water service, which the report likened to an apartment building having a full-time plumber rather than simply calling one when a leak occurs.

The report also called for eight-hour shifts to officially begin when a worker reaches his station, not when he arrives at the ground level, an issue in tall construction sites where many men are using a few hoists to get to the floors where they are working.

“To keep union firms competitive, the ongoing labor contract negotiations — and reformed work rule practices — must bring the union-nonunion differential closer to 10 percent from the current 20-30 percent,” the report says.

“If this does not happen, nonunion labor is likely to gain an ever-increasing share of the market, forcing union developers and contractors to accept open-shop arrangements or leave the construction business.”

 

New Hampshire Senate Approves Bill Curbing Unions

The latest battle front over limitations on unions has opened in New Hampshire, where a law is expected to be adopted that would prohibit unions from collecting mandatory fees and disallow collective bargaining agreements that require employees to join a labor union.

The State Senate passed the bill Wednesday — by a veto-proof vote of 16 to 8 — that would make New Hampshire the 23rd right-to-work state, and the first in the Northeast. The House passed a similar bill in February.

“I thought it was simply a freedom-of-choice issue,” said State Senator Raymond White, a Republican who supported the bill. “At the end of the day it’s simply a bill about does a person have to pay union dues?”

The two houses of the Legislature must work out a compromise bill that will be sent to Gov. John Lynch, a Democrat, who has said he will veto it. The bill will then return to the Legislature for an expected override vote, at which point it will become law.

“The governor has been clear he would veto this legislation,” Colin Manning, a spokesman for Mr. Lynch, said in an e-mail. “The governor does not believe the state should be passing laws dictating the terms of contracts between private employers and workers.”

The battle over the legislation has been especially rancorous for New Hampshire. Protests were held at the Capitol in Concord last week, unusually loud and vitriolic events in a state where only 11 percent of employees are union members.

“We see this as an attack, really, on the middle class and working people and on our ability to negotiate,” said Mark MacKenzie, president of the New Hampshire A.F.L.-C.I.O. “Our economy is doing better than most. There is no public outcry for right-to-work in the state.”

The vote illustrates the major political shift that occurred in November, when conservative Republicans took a majority of the House and swept into the Senate, replacing the moderate bloc.

“These are not your typical New England moderate Republicans,” said Dante J. Scala, a professor of political science at the University of New Hampshire. “They’re more libertarian-minded Republicans that think unions should be out of the question in a contract between employee and employer.”

Like Republicans in other states, supporters in New Hampshire say the legislation is a way to improve a business climate in which there is competition with businesses in neighboring states.

“Right to work means more economic growth and more jobs here in New Hampshire, plain and simple,” House Speaker William O’Brien and the majority leader, David Bettencourt, said in a statement.

Labor groups plan to mobilize for the veto fight with rallies this weekend and calls to legislators.

“The antiworker group has taken control of the State Capitol,” Mr. MacKenzie said. “This is a street fight now.”

 

Temp Workers in Germany Dismay Unions

 

Originally from the area around Erfurt in eastern Germany, Mr. Hintermeier has spent 15 years as a temporary worker, going wherever the jobs are.

“You’re doing the same work for less pay,” said Mr. Hintermeier, who earns about 9 euros, or almost $13, an hour. That is about $2.86 an hour less than the average for eastern Germany, and $7.16 to $8.59 less than in wealthier regions of the country, where Mr. Hintermeier often works.

On top of that, “there aren’t many opportunities to develop,” he complained. And he said he often encountered resentment from co-workers who consider him low-cost competition.

Mr. Hintermeier is one of nearly a million temporary workers, almost 3 percent of the work force, who in recent years have given German companies much more flexibility than before. Temporary employment played a critical role in helping Germany weather the 2009 downturn, as employers were able to quickly respond to ebbing demand by reducing payrolls.

But an increasingly vocal group of critics say that the loosening of regulations in 2003 allowing companies to hire temporary workers has created a vast cohort of poorly paid, poorly treated employees with slim chances of obtaining permanent jobs. With the economy surging once again, unions are lobbying for legislative changes and raising the issue of temporary workers at contract talks.

“Temporary work has enabled a shadow labor market,” Berthold Huber, chairman of the IG Metall labor union, said at a news conference in Frankfurt last week. “That is intolerable.”

Temporary employment, already a boom industry in Europe, is about to get more support when the last restrictions on labor mobility among European Union countries fall away on May 1 — coincidentally the day when Europe celebrates the labor movement. Temporary-employment agencies will then be able to recruit workers in low-wage countries like Poland for jobs in Germany and elsewhere.

“That will certainly raise the pressure,” said Sandra Siebenhüter, who has studied temporary work for the Otto Brenner Foundation, a research organization in Frankfurt that is financially supported by IG Metall.

While there are plenty of anecdotes about temporary workers who are receiving worse deals than permanent employees, the loosening of Germany’s traditionally rigid labor market has been crucial in preventing at least some companies from shipping production abroad.

“Our global competitiveness would deteriorate if we were unable to use the instrument of temporary employment,” Bayerische Motoren Werke, the maker of BMW vehicles, said in a statement, noting that 75 percent of its work force was in Germany, while 80 percent of its car and motorcycle sales were abroad.

At the heart of the debate is the question of whether a temporary, lower-wage job is better than no job at all.

The rise of temporary labor has contributed to a plunge in German joblessness. The unemployment rate has fallen to just above 7 percent, or 3.2 million people, from nearly 12 percent in 2005, or almost 5 million people.

Temporary employment agencies have soaked up a large proportion of those jobless people, many of whom lack training. The industry draws two-thirds of its new employees from the ranks of the unemployed, according to a study by the German Federal Employment Agency.

Randstad Holding, a global temporary-employment agency based outside Amsterdam, has created 50,000 jobs in Germany over the last two years, said Ben Noteboom, Randstad’s chief executive. Most of the people hired had been jobless, he said.

“In the past, staffing was difficult legally,” Mr. Noteboom said. “The moment it changed, the market started to boom.”

He said that he was baffled by efforts to tighten restrictions on temporary hiring. Abuses by a few companies had turned public opinion against the industry, he said. “In Germany, we do see that there is more aggressive talk against our business,” Mr. Noteboom said. “I don’t know how many difficulties you want to create for your companies to stay in the country.”

In fact, Mr. Noteboom said, Germany still has some of the tightest protections anywhere for temporary workers. He said that he considered “temporary worker” a misnomer in the first place. In Germany, Randstad’s workers have the status of regular employees with full health and pension benefits. They are simply lent to other employers.