Perriello predicts no Senate vote on union legislation

Rep. Tom Perriello doesn’t expect Congress to act this year on a controversial change in unions’ ability to expand into more workplaces.

Perriello, D-5th District, told the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce that he thinks the Employee Free Choice Act, also called card-check, won’t be voted on by the Senate this year.

Perriello pinned his viewpoint on Sen. Arlen Specter’s statement last month, and which Specter repeated Friday on the Senate floor, that the legislation would hurt the economy.

“Senator Specter’s decision a few weeks ago really put this thing to rest,” Perriello said, before adding that it’s possible lawmakers could reach a compromise on the bill.

Specter, of Pennsylvania, switched parties this week, becoming a Democrat. Specter said his independent streak allowed him to retain his position on the card-check bill.

Perriello predicted it wouldn’t come up for a vote in the House unless the Senate acts.

If a compromise were to occur, Perriello said he thought it would have to include protection for the secret-ballot process in union elections.

The card-check proposal, as introduced, would allow unions to organize or push for binding arbitration anytime they could get 50 percent of a work force to sign union cards in a non-secret process.

Perriello said he thinks Wal-Mart is the main target of unions, particularly of the Service Employees International Union. The unions are interested primarily in large employers, he said.

Perriello’s coolness toward card-check is different from many Democrats who support the bill.

Bob Leveque, a chamber member, said Democrats’ support of the bill “looks like payback” to unions that supported Democratic candidates financially and with campaign workers, some of whom received pay.

Perriello didn’t respond directly to Leveque’s assertion, but he told the 20 or so chamber members “the party knows I’m an independent.”

“I won a race (against former Rep. Virgil Goode) nobody expected I could win, including the party itself, and I’m going to tell them how I feel,” Perriello said.

“I broke with the party on the president’s budget,” and on six or seven other votes, the freshman congressman said.

Perriello also revealed that “if the voters let me, I’m going to try this for four years and assess” whether he wants to remain in Congress. He would weigh Congress against whether he could “make more of a difference in the nonprofit work I was doing” before he entered politics last year, he said.

Perriello also said the $25 million in federal stimulus funds that were assigned to Lynchburg’s combined sewer overflow project this week was good news for the city, but many localities were left out of the funds.

Lynchburg’s share was almost one-third of the $76.9 million available in Virginia from the stimulus package for water and sewer projects.

“Just to put that request in perspective, I have 22 counties and municipalities in my district, and the number of requests for water and sewage projects was 22,” Perriello said.

“To be honest, I caught a little grief for how much of that money came to Lynchburg from our neighbors further south.” Perriello said he told them Lynchburg’s need was “very important in terms of our industrial base.”