Barbs for an Old Union Man

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Reagan's relations with labor are bad--and getting worse

The performance was vintage Ronald Reagan: a laughing anecdote about how he had almost dropped a pickax on the feet of his boss on a youthful summer construction job; a wry translation of status quo as "Latin for 'the mess we're in' "; a visionary proclamation of "an American Renaissance" of high employment and low inflation. But the audience was as cool as any Reagan has played to as President. It gave him about the minimum of tepid applause required by politeness and respect to his office.

No wonder. Reagan was addressing almost 3,000 delegates to the Chicago convention of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners--and union officials currently rank not far behind black and feminist leaders in expressing dismay over the Administration's course. "He has cut out every social program we have fought for over the last 40 years," exclaimed Roy Klein, a convention delegate from South Bend, Ind. Boston Delegate Andrew Sarno added: "I don't think he should have been allowed to come here."

The most spectacular current reason for this hostility, of course, is Reagan's stern action in firing striking members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers' Organization from their Government jobs. Not that PATCO is winning any popularity contests in the labor movement these days--it was one of the few unions to endorse Reagan and rarely respects job actions by other workers. But most labor leaders have given the controllers' strike rhetorical support because they fear that the Administration's actions will fan a union-busting spirit among state and local governments, whose employees are joining unions rapidly while the membership of most industrial unions is declining. The percentage of all workers who are members of unions dropped from 24.7% in 1970 to 20.9% last year, even though the number of public-employee unionists rose almost 50% between 1970 and the last count in 1978. So far the union leaders' angry protests have budged the Administration not at all.

Speaking to the carpenters, Reagan did pledge that "this Administration will not fight inflation by attacking the sacred right of American workers to negotiate their wages." But the union movement, he contended, had always recognized "that public employees could never be allowed to strike." Strikes by Government workers are illegal, he noted, and "we cannot, as citzens, pick and choose the laws we will or will not obey."

Other Administration officials took pains to deny a report by David Siegel, a PATCO vice president, that the union had begun negotiations with the Government and that "eventually we will go back to the bargaining table." The Administration version is that Kenneth Blaylock, president of the largest union of federal employees, had mentioned ideas for a possible settlement to Donald Devine, director of the federal Office of Personnel Management, and asked Devine to check out what they would cost. Devine's staff worked up a figure, but was quickly ordered to stop by the White House.

By last week the Government had sent notices of intended dismissal to 11,438 controllers, or just about all the strikers, and actually removed 8,196 from the federal payroll. Though the complex appeals process available to the fired individuals is far from exhausted, the Federal Aviation Administration says it has taken back only 35 PATCO members and insists that these are controllers who never voluntarily joined the strike. Furthermore, the Government counts 125,508 people who have accepted its invitation to apply for the striking controllers' jobs, giving it roughly 15 candidates for each of the more than 8,000 positions to be filled.

Union leaders probably would not be mollified even if the Administration were to welcome all the PATCO strikers back tomorrow. Their grievances against Reagan go much deeper. Organized labor fought fiercely, though in vain, against the President's tax and budget cuts, contending that they constituted a loading of the economic scales in favor of the rich and against the poor. AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland describes the Reagan policy as "economic Darwinism--that is, the survival of the richest."

On issues of special concern to their followers, union leaders charge that the Administration is weakening enforcement of industrial health-and-safety laws and gutting the Davis-Bacon Act. That Depression-era law provides that workers on federally aided construction jobs be paid the "prevailing wage" in the area; conservatives have long complained that it has been interpreted by the Government in such a way as to force inflationary increases. Reagan has kept a campaign promise not to ask for repeal of the act, but his Administration has proposed redefining "prevailing wage" in a way that would hold down construction pay. Robert Georgine, head of the AFL-CIO's building trades department, calls the move "repeal by administrative fiat."

What is more, union leaders fume, their views on these and other issues are being blithely ignored. That is more than slightly ironic, since Reagan, as he incessantly reminds them, is the first occupant of the White House who was once a union president (he was head of the Screen Actors Guild from 1947 to 1952 and again in 1959). AFL-CIO chiefs contend that there is no one in his Administration to whom they can pour out their grievances with any effect. They regard Secretary of Labor Raymond J. Donovan, a former construction-company executive, as antiunion, and Robert Bonitati, the White House liaison man with labor, as a lightweight lacking in experience (some Reagan aides privately agree, and are looking for a successor to Bonitati). The labor bosses say they are not consulted on even the most routine appointments to Government agencies dealing with labor matters. To dramatize their contention that they speak for a powerful constituency, they plan a giant Solidarity Day rally in Washington, Sept. 19.

Reagan's strategy seems to be to appeal to rank-and-file union members over the heads of their leaders. By Gallup's estimate, Reagan won 43% of the votes of union members and their families last November, a remarkable performance for a right-wing Republican, and presidential aides think that his tough stands on defense, foreign policy and social issues are still highly popular with most unionists. On economic issues, the President is contending that the liberal policies beloved by union leaders have led only to inflation and unemployment, while his tax and spending cuts will lower price increases and create jobs. Thus, his speech to the Carpenters' Union rang with phrases not much different from those he might have used before an audience of Republican businessmen. Previous Administrations had been "taxing away the American way of life," he cried, and the entitlement programs*; for which he was reducing spending "mean the redistribution of your earnings."

Labor Day brought a kind of test of these competing appeals. New York City union leaders scheduled a parade for which they hoped to turn out 150,000 marchers, including 1,500 striking air controllers; they pointedly did not invite the President. Reagan planned to upstage them by flying to Manhattan for a televised ceremony in which he was to present Mayor Edward Koch with a facsimile of a federal check for $85 million to finance a long-debated city highway project, which is supposed to create 130,000 jobs.

At least one New York labor leader judged Reagan's appeal the more powerful. Said Thomas W. Gleason, president of the International Longshoremen's Association, in an astonishing burst of candor: "You won't find our members marching in that parade. They will all be off in the country closing down their summer bungalows. I mean our members are not poor; they make darn good wages. As far as President Reagan is concerned, everybody in our union is pulling for him. We are looking for a cut in taxes." Reagan is betting that there are enough such affluent bread-and-butter unionists to drown out the vehement protests of the leaders of organized labor. --By George J. Church. Reported by Gisela Bolte/Washington and Douglas Brew with Reagan

* An entitlement program grants a specified level of federal benefits to anyone who meets certain criteria. Some examples: Social Security, food stamps, welfare and unemployment compensation.

With reporting by Gisela Bolte, Douglas Brew

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