Warner pulled by business, labor on ‘card check’

It was the political equivalent of a pig pile, with U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, D-Va., stuck at the bottom.

Warner, still silent on the latest congressional effort to make it easier to unionize the workplace, yesterday came under pressure from friends on both sides to take a stand.

More than 200 business leaders and lobbyists -- some of them Warner confidantes -- descended on the nonunion Omni hotel here to press him to oppose so-called card-check legislation.

It was the latest in a continuing effort by business -- via grass-roots lobbying, the Internet and paid advertising -- to smoke out Warner and other swing senators who could decide the issue.

Outside the hotel, in a steady rain, 40 union supporters -- including labor leaders who worked for Warner's elections as governor and senator -- chanted and carried signs urging passage of the disputed bill.

Warner, traveling in the labor bastion of Southwest Virginia, is remaining neutral, saying only that the system for deciding union representation needs to be fixed.

"This issue has stirred strong feelings on both sides," Warner spokesman Kevin Hall said in an e-mail. "Senator Warner will continue to listen and to work with the business community and labor to try to achieve an appropriate balance that does not give an unfair advantage to either side."

The measure -- imperiled by parliamentary maneuvering that would keep it from coming to a Senate vote -- could usher in new gains for labor in Virginia, where a ban since the late 1940s on compulsory union membership keeps labor weak.

An emboldened labor movement frightens the state's politically muscular industry and professional groups, of which nearly 50 have formed a union of their own -- Virginians for Workplace Fairness -- to work against what is known simply as "card check."

Currently, employees decide by secret ballot whether to affiliate with a union. The bill in Congress would weaken that 70-year-old practice, allowing the rank and file to sign cards opening a shop to labor.

Among those imploring Warner to resist the bill was George C. Newstrom, Warner's first secretary of technology when he was governor from 2002 to 2006.

Newstrom said in an interview that Warner is in a difficult spot: "A lot of his friends in the business community are on one side, and his political organization is on the other."

Jim Leaman, president of the traditionally Democratic Virginia AFL-CIO, agreed. Leaman said of Warner, "He's hard to pin down. He is going to stay elusive until the bill comes to the floor. History shows that's Mark Warner's method of operation."

Defeat of the card-check proposal is an article of faith among business leaders, still savoring victory with the death last week in the Republican-dominated House of Delegates of expanded jobless pay for thousands thrown out of work by the recession.

Unlike Warner, Virginia's senior senator, fellow Democrat Jim Webb, favors the card-check concept and was a sponsor of the 2008 version. However, Webb does not believe the measure should be taken up this year.

Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or .