Recently, the roofing industry has experienced victory and loss on Capitol Hill. With debate about issues such as the Employee Free Choice Act and comprehensive immigration reform—both of which have major implications for the roofing industry—expected to resume after the 2008 election, NRCA is continuing to join with other business organizations to litigate where necessary and maintain a presence in Washington, D.C., to have a maximum effect on these issues.
Labor relations victory
On June 26, the U.S. Senate blocked the Employee Free Choice Act (H.R. 800), also called the "card-check" bill, when it failed to garner the 60 votes needed to invoke cloture. The cloture motion failed 51-48 with all Democrats and one Republican voting in favor of the motion.
The House voted 241-185 in favor of the bill on March 1 (see "Gridlock," June issue, page 20). But even if it had passed in the Senate, President Bush had pledged to veto the bill because it would fundamentally alter the National Labor Relations Act by replacing secret-ballot elections with a union authorization card (card-check) system for employees to decide whether to form a union.
The Employee Free Choice Act is AFL-CIO's top legislative priority and, should Democrats win the White House and add Senate seats in 2008, would likely become law.
Immigration reform loss
On June 28, the Senate made its final attempt to pass comprehensive immigration reform legislation. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) brought back the Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 as S. 1639 after it had been pulled from the floor several weeks earlier as S. 1348 (see "A unified voice," July issue, page 20). It was revived at the request of the White House; Hispanic groups; and business organizations, such as the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, which NRCA co-chairs.
The bipartisan group of senators who wrote S. 1348 worked to pass the new bill, but conservative talk shows, AFL-CIO's opposition to guest workers and liberal opposition to placing limits on family migration brought the bill down. Sensing the bill was in trouble, some senators who support comprehensive immigration reform pealed off, and the cloture vote finished at 46-53, well shy of the 60 votes needed.
Although the bill was far from perfect, its defeat is troubling because enforcement alone will not solve the myriad of problems the U.S. has with its immigration system. And one of the bill's most important features would have been federal pre-emption over proliferating state and local immigration laws.
Many state and local laws target employers who hire illegal immigrants, which is consistent with Title III of the defeated Senate bill (see "The states take a stand," page 44). But states are charging forward with these laws absent other parts of the Senate bill—such as tamper-proof biometric identification cards and an employment verification database that would have created an infrastructure to assist employers.
The immigration issue for NRCA now moves to the regulatory arena, where the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expected to dictate how employers must respond to Social Security Administration (SSA) "no-match letters," which SSA issues when W-2 forms do not match its records. DHS plans to prosecute employers for immigration violations if they fail to terminate employees with unresolved no-match letters within 60 days of receipt. NRCA filed comments with DHS criticizing the rule on Aug. 14, 2006, and has briefed members of Congress regarding problems the rule would pose.
Making an impression
June saw a legislative victory for NRCA and other business organizations when the Employee Free Choice Act was stopped in the Senate and a loss when comprehensive immigration reform collapsed in the Senate. Another battle over the act probably will take place after the 2008 election, and with an estimated net gain of 500,000 illegal immigrants entering the U.S. annually, there undoubtedly will be another attempt at immigration reform. NRCA will work to ensure these issues are resolved in the best way for the roofing industry.
Craig S. Brightup is NRCA's vice president of government relations.
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