It wasn’t the typical rapid reaction that has become a staple of Washington life since Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign.
Usually in political combat, the advocates on opposing sides of an issue attack and counterattack within the same news cycle, sometimes within the same hour.
It took Rep. Ken Calvert, R-California, two days to push back against a coalition of HR groups, led by the Society for Human Resource Management, that wants to replace the government-run electronic employment verification system that he authored, E-Verify.
In a hearing on Tuesday, May 6, the HR Initiative for a Legal Workforce was among critics that called E-Verify inefficient, prone to error and incapable of detecting identity fraud.
In an announcement released late on Thursday, May 8, Calvert’s office called on the organization “to end their campaign of negative advertising and often exaggerated claims against E-Verify.”
On May 6, the coalition led the charge for a bill written by Sen. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, that would replace E-Verify with a new electronic verification mechanism and eliminate the I-9 process.
Companies would be required to submit new-hire information to the Social Security Administration through a child-support enforcement system that about 90 percent of U.S. employers use. But before that happens, the Social Security database would be cleaned up through a congressional appropriation.
The problem with E-Verify, opponents argue, is that it relies on the current database, which has a 4.1 percent error rate and could mistakenly declare millions of people ineligible for employment. They also say that the Johnson bill avoids many other E-Verify deficiencies.
At the hearing, Calvert defended his creation, testifying that 92 percent of employees put into the system are immediately approved and less than 1 percent successfully contest a nonconfirmation.
About 61,000 employers voluntarily use E-Verify. The law that established the system expires in November. Calvert has introduced a bill that would reauthorize it and mandate that all 7.4 million employers sign up over a seven-year period.
Most of the input at the hearing came from people who were concerned that such an expansion of E-Verify would overwhelm the Social Security system.
After mulling it over for a couple days, Calvert issued a pointed statement on Thursday.
“While I appreciated the opportunity to testify, it was clear that the hearing, as evidenced by the second witness panel, was slanted against E-Verify,” he said. “The fact remains that E-Verify is the only tool available for employers, who are required to hire a legal workforce, to check the veracity of identification documents presented by a new employee.”
Then the shot across SHRM’s bow: “There are certain interests that simply do not want employment verification. That is why they will denounce E-Verify and assert that there is a perfect system out there somewhere, when in fact there is no perfect system.”
But SHRM is standing its ground. The world’s largest HR organization has never said it is against verification; but it will continue to oppose the current government system.
“Our opinions are not politically motivated,” says SHRM president and CEO Sue Meisinger. “They are based on what our members say. We think there’s a better way than E-Verify.”
The disagreement between SHRM and Calvert may intensify as November, and E-Verify’s expiration date, approaches.
Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama created a political firestorm when he waxed philosophical at a San Francisco fundraiser about the plight of the working class—a group of Americans under constant threat of job loss.
“It’s not surprising that they get a little bitter; they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment,” he was quoted as saying.
Leaving aside the potential offense the remarks could give to people whose faith or firearms are genuinely important to them, Obama may be on to something when he says that many American workers are bitter.
But it’s unlikely their economic fears are assuaged by what they hear from presidential candidates, including Obama, or from elected officials. Helping those who have been left behind by global economic competition and technological advancement requires a complex policy approach based on management, labor and government cooperation.
It will take the combined efforts of those three entities—along with presidential leadership—to modernize U.S. workforce training programs, streamline health care and wage assistance for displaced workers, and develop a portable benefits system so workers don’t lose their safety net when they lose their jobs.
These issues deserve a prominent place in political discourse. They’re not getting it. True, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi halted the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, a top priority for President Bush, in order to “put the leverage back into the hands of America’s working families” and force Bush to consider Democratic economic proposals.
Chief among them is an expansion of Trade Adjustment Assistance for workers who are adversely affected by trade. Another is a second economic stimulus package that focuses on an extension of unemployment benefits.
But when Pelosi and Bush tangle, they usually fight over Bush’s insistence on making his 2001 and 2003 tax cuts permanent. Democrats say they are a sop for the wealthy.
Bush only brings up Trade Adjustment Assistance when he is looking for support for trade agreements. The administration has shown little interest in it otherwise. But Democrats tend to talk more about cushioning the hurt of unemployment than they do about how to help all workers—including those who already have jobs—improve their skills and their standard of living.
On the campaign trail, Obama has devoted at least one speech to workforce training. But the rest of the time, he stokes worker anger about tough economic times rather than outline ways to help them move their career arc higher. He’s consistently pitting workers against management.
“What we can’t do is sign trade deals that put the interests of multinational corporations ahead of the interests of our workers or our environment,” Obama said in an April 15 speech before building trade unions.
In reality, international companies depend on a strong workforce. The firms’ success is inextricably linked to their employees’ success—and for that matter, unions’ success. Despite his rhetoric about uniting management and labor, Obama rarely explores how to leverage that relationship for the good of the economy and individuals.
Sen. John McCain is not necessarily providing much hope for struggling workers either. In a major speech on economic policy April 15, he concentrated on tax breaks—an issue that won’t bring immediate comfort to those whose factory is moving to Mexico or China.
He did outline worker retraining and unemployment insurance reforms. But those policies came up in paragraphs 33 through 35 of a 43-paragraph speech. People who are worried about how to improve their skills to get a better job had to wait a while for McCain to get around to them.
Bush, Pelosi, Obama and McCain could do a better job of addressing workers’ fears.
As the clock winds down to the two-minute warning for the Bush administration, the Department of Labor has proposed to modify the Family and Medical Leave Act for the first time in its 15-year existence.
That move drew a predictable reaction—from Democrats who say the changes are an assault on employee leave and from the business community, which sought more profound action. Here is a summary of the situation from February 14:
One of the objections that Democrats brought up at the February hearing about the regulatory proposal is that it is coming too late in President Bush’s tenure. The comment period ends April 11. Then there is precious little time to issue a final rule and get the approval of the Office of Management and Budget.
Why did the Labor Department wait so long to offer the 477-page proposal? The answer provides some hope that middle ground can be found between FMLA advocates who don’t want a syllable of the law changed and business interests that would like to see fundamental revisions to two areas most prone to abuse—the definition of a serious condition and the use of unscheduled intermittent leave.
Victoria Lipnic, assistant secretary of labor for the Employment Standards Administration, said the administration came forward with FMLA changes as soon as it could. She notes that the DOL has been engaged in meetings since 2003 with those who use, administer and promote FMLA.
Those sessions produced a raft of questions that became the basis for a survey, concluded in 2007, that produced 15,000 comments. The department then sifted through that feedback, reviewed FMLA court cases during the last 15 years and finally put out the FMLA regulatory proposal in February.
That hefty volume was strengthened because the long gestation gave the DOL a better understanding of how FMLA is working, according to Lipnic.
“We came to this in a deliberative way,” she said in an interview after the February 14 hearing.
A close reading of the regulation shows that the DOL painstakingly included both sides of the story. Within the same paragraph, it quotes champions of FMLA and opponents. Then it offers a recommendation that doesn’t fully please either side.
The proposal is hardly revolutionary. It could have been much better or much worse, depending on your frame of reference. It declines to change the definition of a serious health condition and does not significantly alter rules for intermittent leave, other than to require that employees warn their supervisors before the beginning of their shift that they will be out.
The DOL does allow companies to contact directly an employee’s health care provider to determine whether leave is legitimate. But if the company denies leave, under the new rules, it would have to do so in writing and give the employee a chance to respond.
Despite balancing attempts, tweaking FMLA causes political sparks to fly. “The administration couldn’t publish the current rules without getting into a fight,” said Marc Freedman, director of labor law policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
But in the midst of political heat, FMLA also generates light. Most HR professionals acknowledge that the leave law works well more often than not. Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut and the original FMLA author, wants to enact paid leave but also has indicated in the past that he would listen to calls from the business community for some FMLA modifications.
After the February 14 hearing, Dodd met with Lipnic in private. Perhaps in the quiet of a Capitol Hill office, they inched closer toward middle ground that is overshadowed by politics in congressional hearings.
When President Bush soon signs economic stimulus legislation totaling about $160 billion, he wants to be done with it.
It contains the elements that were Bush’s priority—tax rebates for individuals and tax incentives for business investment. He was able to get Democratic majorities in the House and Senate to limit additions.
They settled on inserting higher Social Security payments. In response to opposition by the White House and many Senate Republicans, they left out an extension of unemployment benefits.
That represented a victory for AARP and a loss for organized labor. But labor will try to stage a comeback in the sequel to the stimulus bill, which many Democrats insist should include a boost in unemployment payments.
It looks as if they will continue to face resistance from the White House. Edward Lazear, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, maintains that unemployment hasn’t reached a level that requires action.
“Extension of unemployment benefits has never occurred when the unemployment rate was below 5.7 percent,” he said at a briefing for White House reporters on Monday, February 11. “And usually, if you look at the historical record, it’s somewhat closer to 7 percent. So it would be unprecedented to extend unemployment benefits at a time when the unemployment rate is 4.9 percent.”
If Senate Republicans were brave enough on the first pass-through to oppose changing unemployment policy during an election year with a potential recession looming, it’s a good bet that they’ll keep hanging together.
But Democratic leaders like Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, intend to put up a fight. He called the stimulus bill a down payment, not the final check, when it comes to government efforts to juice the economy.
“It’s clear the White House doesn’t begin to understand the anxiety that tens of millions of American families are suffering, and the stimulus bill … leaves too many of them out,” he said in a statement this week. “The best response by Congress … is to pass immediate additional targeted relief to those in need, with specific help for the unemployed and for families who can’t afford to heat their homes.”
Given the Democratic majorities’ strong inclination to advance employment legislation that expands worker rights and to promote bills that bolster the labor movement, it’s been fascinating to see them get stymied time and again.
We’ll have to see during the remaining months of the 110th Congress whether the trend continues. In the meantime, Democrats are hoping they can increase their numbers in the Senate and put a colleague in the White House. That is probably the surest way to achieve the outcome they seek on employment law.
Meanwhile, Bush and the Senate Republicans continue to be extraordinarily effective in winning the daily policy grind in the capital. Will they now be able to come up with an election narrative about workforce issues that voters embrace?
Ronald Reagan was known as the Teflon President. He maintained his popularity even during times when the economy cratered and his administration was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal.
President Bush doesn’t have a Teflon shield, exactly. The problems he has experienced in Iraq and with the economy have kept his approval ratings below 40 percent for most of his entire second term.
That makes his sway over the Democratic majorities in Congress all the more remarkable. We have to come up with a Teflon-like term for a president who can wield such influence over Capitol Hill with such a weak hand.
He is at it again with the economic stimulus package. A couple weeks ago, I wrote that a prominent House member, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, intended to make an extension of unemployment benefits a key part of stimulus.
But Bush was able to forge an agreement with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, that focused stimulus on tax cuts and rebates while excluding unemployment benefits. It was approved with strong bipartisan support by the House on Tuesday, January 29.
Just as Bush prevailed over Democrats who wanted to expand a children’s health insurance program and those who wanted to set a deadline for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, he is doing so now on stimulus.
It’s true that a faltering economy is in large part fostering a spirit of cooperation between the White House and Capitol Hill. When they face voters this fall, House members want to point to passage of a nearly $150 billion stimulus package as proof that they tried to do something to prevent a recession.
It’s still noteworthy that the stimulus coming out of the House is precisely what the president wants. But as the issue moves to the Senate, we’ll see the real test of Bush’s mettle.
Sen. Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, has introduced a stimulus proposal that includes an additional 13 weeks of unemployment insurance for all workers and 26 weeks for those who live in states with an unemployment rate of 6 percent or higher. Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, also has proposed extending unemployment and increasing the payments.
The White House likely will push back. “The temptation will be to load up the [stimulus] bill,” Bush said in his January 28 State of the Union speech. “That would delay or derail it, and neither option is acceptable.”
So the clock is ticking toward the mid-February deadline set by both parties for congressional stimulus approval. Bush has little time to bring the historically unwieldy Senate around to his point of view. The task is made more difficult by the Democratic majority and the fact that Republicans, especially those up for re-election, probably don’t want to filibuster a stimulus bill.
Baucus was hopeful earlier this week. “I’m pleased the president has shown a willingness to work with Congress to boost America’s economy,” he said in a statement after the State of the Union address. “I hope that desire to work together will extend to the proposals the Finance Committee will consider this week.”
It’s always difficult to predict what will happen in Washington. But if Bush persuades—or somehow strong-arms—the Senate into abandoning an extension of unemployment benefits, it will be a development worthy of analysis in political science classes.
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