A spokesperson for Sen. Arlen Specter confirmed that he is going to join with other Democrats in voting for cloture on the Employee Free Choice Act.
When asked what Specter’s final position would be on the bill, the spokesperson said he was continuing to pursue a compromise that involves the highly contentious Card Check and binding arbitration provisions and referred The Examiner to his March floor speech.
While addressing the Netroots Nation conference held in Pittsburgh, Pa. this past weekend, Specter announced that he would vote for cloture on the bill, which would cut off debate.
“I expect the cloture vote to occur on a modified version of the Employee’s Free Choice legislation,” Specter said on Friday. “And I will support that cloture vote.”
Just a few weeks prior to switching parties from Republican to Democrat on April 28, Specter spelled out his reasons for opposing The Employee Free Choice Act in the Senate floor speech and said he could not support cloture.
“I am announcing my decision now because I have consulted with a very large number of interested parties on both sides and I have made up my mind,” he said. “Knowing that I will not support cloture on this bill, Senators may choose to move on and amend the NRLA as I have suggested or otherwise. This announcement should end the rumor mill that I have made some deal for my political advantage. I have not traded my vote in the past and I would not do so now.”
Specter expressed misgivings over both the Card Check and binding arbitration components of the bill in his speech and said they should not be enacted in a recessionary climate that has already impacted business.
“On the merits, the issue which has emerged at the top of the list for me is the elimination of the secret ballot which is the cornerstone of how contests are decided in a democratic society,” Specter said. “The bill’s requirement for compulsory arbitration if an agreement is not reached within 120 days may subject the employer to a deal he or she cannot live with. Such arbitration runs contrary to the basic tenet of the Wagner Act for collective bargaining which makes the employer liable only for a deal he or she agrees to. The arbitration provision could be substantially improved by the last best offer procedure which would limit the arbitrator’s discretion and prompt the parties to move to more reasonable positions.”
More than 50 percent of those surveyed by Rasmussen say a vote on whether to organize a union without a secret ballot is unfair. Kate Cyrul, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the measure’s lead sponsor in the upper chamber, has said that negotiations involving a possible compromise on the bill are underway.
The negotiations have centered on the possibility of dropping Card Check but labor leaders have already signaled that this is unacceptable. Specter has been privy to these discussions but has declined to comment on the details.
“The negotiations are best served by no public comments at this time,” Specter has said.
Any compromise that maintains binding arbitration is a “non-starter” from the point of view of business owners who could be forced into economically unsound contracts, Mark McKinnon, a spokesman for the Workforce Fairness Institute (WFI) spokesman has said. Labor and management would have 120 days to reach an agreement before federal mediators step in to set two-year contracts as the bill is currently written.
Katie Packer, executive director of the WFI said that Specter needs to clarify his position.
“Senator Specter owes Pennsylvanians an explanation on where he stands on the job-killing Employee ‘Forced’ Choice Act,” said Katie Packer, executive director of the WFI. “Whether it’s so-called ‘compromise’ legislation or the bill introduced in the U.S. House and Senate, both eliminate worker rights and increase unemployment. “Specter needs to answer whether he will vote no on cloture if the bill includes the elimination of the secret ballot or mandatory, binding arbitration. And working families in Pennsylvania deserve to know whether Specter will keep the promise he made to them on the floor of the United States Senate when he stated his opposition to both card check and forced arbitration.”
Rep. Joe Sestak, Specter’s challenger in the Democratic primary for Senate, won a straw poll vote over Specter at the Netroots conference. Sestak won 46 percent and Specter received 10 percent, among the 235 participants in the poll. The latest Rasmussen poll also shows Specter trailing Pat Toomey by 50 percent to 39 percent.
