Santorum is big labor? Pa. union leaders say ‘ridiculous’

As Rick Santorum‘s poll numbers rise, so do the Mitt Romney attacks. This week the Romney campaign, directly and through surrogates, have attacked Rick Santorum as “big labor’s favorite senator.”

But that’s not how Pennsylvania labor leaders remember their former senator.

Aside from votes here and there, they remember a man who was hostile to unions and received a career average of just 12 percent from the AFL-CIO for votes he cast from 1995 to 2006. Three of those years he received a zero on the labor lobby’s scorecard.

Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, remembered trying to schedule meetings with Santorum, but always being passed over to his staff. After appealing to the Republican Senator’s aides on the labor issue of the day, Bloomingdale said his office would receive a letter stating the senator “was opposing you on whatever that issue was.”

“His thing was, ‘I won without you.’ He’s an arrogant guy, he thinks he’s right and everyone else is wrong,” Bloomingdale said. “Calling him a labor supporter would be similar to calling Mitt Romney a conservative. They’re both ridiculous.”

Bill George, who preceded Bloomingdale as state president, said in the few instances Santorum supported labor, it was often because business was also on board. When Santorum, then a Pittsburgh-area U.S. congressman, voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement, it was because the state’s steel industry also opposed it. He then voted for subsequent trade agreements with other nations.

“No, he’s never been a friend of labor,” George said.

“Rick being a labor supporter is laughable,” said Greg Potter, head of the Lehigh Valley Labor Council. “I don’t know where (Romney) comes up with a lot of these things, let alone this. It sounds like a desperate candidate. And it sounds that way to a lot of folks.”

Throughout the week, the Romney campaign attacks have largely been lobbed in Michigan, where, despite being Romney’s hometown, he and Santorum are running even in polls. Michigan votes Feb. 28.

The campaign dispatched Romney surrogates to exploit Santorum’s “unapologetic defense of big labor.” On Friday, former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu, on a conference call hosted by the Romney campaign, said Santorum “is not a conservative on labor issues.”

The campaign blasted out a press release this week with the heading: “Rick Santorum: Big Labor’s Favorite Senator” in large, bold, capital letters. In it, Romney campaign has highlighted a handful of votes Santorum cast that would be viewed as pro-labor. In 1996, the year Santorum received his highest rating from the AFL-CIO, 43 percent, he voted not to proceed on a National Right to Work bill that would have allowed workers not to pay union dues. The bill failed.

But Bloomingdale cited those instances as outliers in a long career. Santorum served in the U.S. House from 1991 to 1994 before ousting incumbent Democrat Harris Wofford from his U.S. Senate seat.

“Santorum, when he would see something, if it was going to fail, he would throw us a vote,” Bloomingdale said. “The problem with Congress is there are so many votes, Romney could certainly pick out a few isolated incidents.”

Santorum has said he sometimes voted for labor because Pennsylvania has many unions. State lawmakers have not pushed for right-to-work status, so he didn’t support it in Washington. About 15 percent of the Pennsylvania workforce is unionized.

In the 2006 U.S. Senate race, labor spent $444,000 on Democrat Bob Casey versus $65,700 on Santorum, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ Opensecrets.org.

Building trades labor unions liked Santorum, former Gov. Ed Rendell said, because he actively brought federal money for projects home to Pennsylvania.

“He got us a lot of projects and helped the construction industry,” Rendell said in an interview. “Did he have a good relationship with the municipalities? The SEIU? The teacher’s union? Not so much …”

“I wouldn’t call him on ideological issues on welfare or food stamps because I knew he and I disagreed,” Rendell said, “but on issues about projects he did a terrific job. When the Romney camp says [Santorum] was for earmarks, he was for earmarks.”

The Pennsylvania arm of the Building and Construction Trades Council overwhelmingly endorsed Casey over Santorum in the 2006 election, Frank Sirianni, president of the state chapter said. But the local Philadelphia chapter and two other smaller union groups backed Santorum, according to news reports, citing his support for funding that spurred construction jobs.

Sirianni had nothing bad to say about Santorum.

“He did a good job as a senator and brought a lot of economic development to the state. There’s no crime in that,” Sirianni said. “He created a lot of jobs, good paying jobs. What’s wrong with using taxpayer dollars to improve people’s environments?”

Santorum’s proud earmarking during his congressional career is another point the Romney campaign hammers in an effort to weaken Santorum’s support among Michigan’s conservative voters.

Hogan Gidley, Santorum’s spokesman, said Romney has been “grasping at straws the entire campaign.”

“When he’s challenged he just unleashes his well-funded attack machine and refuses to spend time or money talking about why he’s good. He’d rather talk about why someone else is bad,” Gidley said. “Most of the attacks he makes are false, misleading and just not true.”