The Senate delivered a setback Thursday to a national right-to-work bill but approved another controversial measure that gives companies greater leeway in setting up employer-employee discussion groups.
Both bills were strongly opposed by the administration and organized labor, which said the real intention was to undermine the power of unions.The two votes came a day after the Senate acted on another contentious labor bill, approving an increase in the minimum wage.
The Senate rejected, 68-31, an attempt to cut off debate and move toward final action of the national right-to-work bill that would stop states from requiring that all employees pay union dues as a condition of employment. It fell 29 votes short of the 60 votes needed to end debate and move legislation toward a final vote.
The sponsor of the legislation, Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-S.C., said right-to-work laws, now in force in 21 states, should be nationalized because "compulsory unionism violates a fundamental principle of individual liberty."
But Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., said it was a "direct attack on the ability of working people to protect their economic interests."
The Senate next voted, 53-46, to send to President Clinton, for a promised veto, a measure called the "TEAM" Act that would allow employers to form groups with workers to discuss such issues as quality control and productivity.
The bill, sponsored by Labor Committee Chairwoman Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., is identical to legislation narrowly passed by the House last September.
Kassebaum argued that her bill only makes it easier for employers and employees to cooperate in nonunion settings. "It only represents common sense. It's not in any way designed to be a destroyer of unions."
But the administration, in a statement, said the president would veto the legislation because it could lead to employers creating company-dominated unions that "would undermine a 60-year tradition of collective bargaining."
Kennedy, the ranking Democrat on the Labor Committee, said there was no need for the legislation because 30,000 employers have already established teams with workers, and the National Labor Relations Board rarely objects to these arrangements.
"It overturns one of the fundamental protections of American law - that employers cannot set up company-dominated unions as a trick to prevent workers from joining real unions," Kennedy said.
Republicans earlier tried to attach the TEAM Act to legislation to raise the minimum wage, but President Clinton said the labor relations measure was a "poison pill" that would precipitate a veto.
The 90-cent increase in the minimum wage was attached to a less controversial tax bill and passed the Senate Tuesday by 74-24.