Ryan Benefits from Union Friendly Law
Suzy Khimm reports:
Republican golden boy Paul Ryan is hardly known for his sympathies to organized labor. With his drastic budget proposal to privatize Medicare and unabashed support for Governor Scott Walker's anti-union bill, the Wisconsin congressman has become the new face of the GOP's right flank.
But a closer look at Ryan's voting record reveals a single eyebrow-raising exception when it comes to labor unions: Ryan has consistently broken with his party to defend a law protecting the wages of unionized construction workers. His stance on the issue has earned him the support of a handful of unions back home, setting them apart from the majority of Wisconsin's labor community, which who has cast Ryan as public enemy No. 1. What explains this break in GOP orthodoxy? Ryan's family owns a construction firm that relies heavily on union labor—and the company could suffer if the law were repealed.
Since he was first elected to Congress in 1998, Ryan has been a staunch supporter of the Davis-Bacon Act, which prevents federally funded construction projects from undercutting the prevailing union wages in any local area. Republicans have been pushing to repeal Davis-Bacon for years, claiming that it benefits unions at the expense of taxpayers. In a handful of states, GOP lawmakers have already succeeded in overturning state versions of the law. But as recently as February, Ryan joined 47 other Republicans and 185 Democrats to oppose overturning Davis-Bacon, defeating the repeal bill.
Ryan's support for Davis-Bacon is an outlier in the lawmaker's predominantly anti-union record. As Walker tried to push through a bill that eliminates most union rights for public employees, drawing thousands of protestors to the Capitol in Madison, Ryan famously compared the protesters to the anti-government uprising in Cairo and likened the anti-Walker demonstrations to "riots." He opposes the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for unions to organize, and received only a 20 percent rating from the AFL-CIO in 2008. But for a few local unions in Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District, Ryan's support for Davis-Bacon has been enough to win their support—along with tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.
"We don't agree with him on all issues…but we have a working relationship on the primary issue of importance to us," says Mark Reihl, executive director of the Wisconsin State Council of Carpenters. "He's supported us on every Davis-Bacon vote that's been held out there." The Carpenters and Joiners Union, as a result, has consistently been one of Ryan's top 20 contributors over the years; Ryan has received a total of $47,500 from members of the union since taking office.
