By Marty Toohey
Austin American-Statesman
AUSTIN — Labor won a rare Texas victory Saturday, with the House Republican carrying an anti-union bill declaring it dead.
Byron Cook, the Corsicana Republican who chairs the House State Affairs Committee, told the Quorum Report that Senate Bill 1968 is flawed and that, having received it with only two weeks before the end of the legislative session, there was not enough time to fix it. On Thursday, following a committee meeting where the bill was debated, Cook said, “We’re very aware of the weaknesses.”
The proposal probably would have reduced membership in the unions that represent teachers, state employees and some other public-sector workers. Business groups and conservative activists were pushing the bill, which was filed by state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, and passed by the Senate. Some saw the House failure as a sign of weakness on the part of leaders in that chamber.
“When given chance to protect Texans’ wallets and help the Texas GOP with SB 1968, Byron Cook is siding with big labor and the Texas Democratic Party,” Michael Quinn Sullivan, president of the conservative Empower Texans, tweeted on Saturday. He has also accused House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, of slow-walking a similar bill that originated on the House side “until he got really bad press for the GOP” in The Wall Street Journal.
SB 1968 would have banned automatic paycheck deductions for union dues for many public employees. The bill’s supporters say it would keep unions from using government for political ends.
Labor advocates say Texas isn’t Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker’s fight against the state’s unions sparked national news coverage. Unions have far less power in Texas -- no one can be forced to join a union here, leading labor advocates to conclude the bill attempted to address a problem that does not exist while removing the easiest way for union members to pay their dues.
But building contractors, business groups and the state Republican Party have said the dues sustain organizations that overwhelmingly support Democrats.
KeepTexasWorking.org calculated that Texas Democrats received more than 98 percent of the $3.8 million donated in the last three state election cycles from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the Service Employees International Union.
Critics of Huffman’s bill say political contributions are a red herring because dues cannot be donated directly to candidates. Union members must make separate donations to the political arm of a union.
The otherwise straightforward political calculus was thrown off by the state’s public safety unions. Many police and firefighter unions, though exempted from the bill, opposed it, saying it could set a precedent that could eventually apply to them. Corrections-officer unions who would have been affected also opposed the bill.