home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=92TT0913>
- <title>
- Apr. 27, 1992: Bush Plays His Antiunion Card
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1992
- Apr. 27, 1992 The Untold Story of Pan Am 103
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 14
- NATION
- Bush Plays His Antiunion Card
- </hdr><body>
- <p>Big Labor backs Clinton, and the President smacks Big Labor
- </p>
- <p> George Bush developed a sudden interest in labor law last
- Monday, the very day that the AFL-CIO leadership endorsed Bill
- Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Bush issued
- a directive ordering all federal contractors to notify their
- non-union employees in union shops that they may decline to have
- their dues diverted to political candidates they do not support.
- Bush broke no new ground here--the Supreme Court established
- that principle in a 1988 ruling. That is why the Bush
- pronouncement had the sound of an election-year effort to
- placate the restless right wing of the Republican Party. Bush
- will need conservative support in the South especially, where
- right-to-work states will be crucial battlegrounds. Clinton's
- home state of Arkansas is one.
- </p>
- <p> The Bush order does not carry much throw weight. While the
- White House declares it will affect as many as 3 million
- workers, the AFL-CIO claims it will involve fewer than 1
- million. And though it will not greatly diminish the potency of
- union political activities, it does send a message. Asked if he
- was engaging in union busting, Bush responded with a straight
- face, "We enforce individual rights." Bush, countered AFL-CIO
- president Lane Kirkland, "has given hypocrisy a bad name."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-