AFL-CIO Expected to Oppose Bork : Will Lobby in Capital, Try to Influence Undecided Senators

The AFL-CIO, which played a major role in defeating two of former President Richard M. Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees, is expected Monday to approve a sharply worded resolution urging the Senate to reject President Reagan’s nomination of Robert H. Bork to the high court, union sources said Friday.

The federation, which plans extensive lobbying against Bork in Washington and in the home states of undecided senators, will base its opposition on Bork’s positions on civil rights and women’s issues, as well as on issues of prime importance to labor.

Some Bork supporters in the Reagan Administration minimized the importance of the AFL-CIO opposition to the nomination. They cited the apparent ineffectiveness of labor’s support for Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale in the 1984 general election.

Mobilizing Voters

But Bork’s opponents said organized labor could be a crucial factor in the process, particularly in mobilizing voters at the grass roots to put pressure on their senators to oppose Bork.

“If the AFL-CIO joins the effort against Robert Bork, it will have enormous consequences both in respect to its grass-roots organization and its capabilities in Washington, which are very effective,” said Ralph Neas, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.

While lobbying senators in Washington is important, Neas said, “it’s more important for the senators to hear from their own constituents that their constitutional rights could be overturned overnight if Bork is confirmed.”

The AFL-CIO’s executive council, the organization’s policy-making body, will vote on the resolution at its meeting here Monday. A favorable vote is considered a forgone conclusion.

Rejection of Haynsworth

The AFL-CIO led the fight in the Senate’s 1969 rejection of Nixon’s Supreme Court nomination of Judge Clement F. Haynsworth Jr., whom it depicted as anti-labor. Then it joined in the successful opposition to Nixon’s next choice, G. Harrold Carswell, who was criticized for his civil rights record and his general lack of competence.

During the Reagan Administration, however, the AFL-CIO last year unsuccessfully fought the confirmation of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and the nomination of Daniel A. Manion to the federal appeals court in Chicago.

But civil rights organizations and others involved in the anti-Bork effort are waging a far more intensive campaign now than they did against Rehnquist. With the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings not scheduled to begin until Sept. 15, labor’s assistance could be a considerable boost.

“The significance, more than anything else, is it gets millions of people throughout the country” aware of the nomination and its importance, said one AFL-CIO official who asked not to be identified.

Considerable Resources

A labor political operative predicted that the AFL-CIO would put considerable resources--staff members of affiliated unions and money--into the effort to defeat Bork. Several union sources said members would be encouraged to write letters to their senators urging a no vote.

Underscoring the broadly based nature of organized labor’s opposition, a labor lawyer cited a report, written by Washington lawyers opposed to Bork, on his record for the last five years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

The report concludes that Bork voted against a liberal position on 42 of 45 non-unanimous rulings in cases involving labor, freedom of information, criminal procedure, environment, civil rights and liberties, access to the federal courts and consumer issues.

Bork has ruled directly against worker interests in several major cases, according to labor sources.

Court Overruled NLRB

In one, a truck driver called the police for a safety inspection on a truck he believed had faulty brakes. The worker was fired, and the National Labor Relations Board ruled that he was not protected by federal labor laws. A majority of the appeals court overturned the ruling, but Bork dissented.

In another case, federal officials ordered a West Virginia chemical company to reduce the risk that lead in the air of one of its plants could get into the blood of pregnant workers and cause birth defects. The company said it could not comply and, instead, told a group of women employees that they would have to transfer out of a dangerous section of the plant unless they were willing to be surgically sterilized.

Five women underwent surgical sterilization at a hospital, and two refused to be sterilized and were transferred to other lower-paying jobs. Bork and Judge Antonin Scalia, who was later elevated to the Supreme Court, upheld a decision by the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission that denied union challenges to the company’s actions.

Review of Bork’s Record

When Reagan nominated Bork on July 1, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland issued a statement urging each senator to thoroughly review Bork’s record.

“It is critical that the senators not commit themselves in advance to support or to oppose this nomination,” Kirkland said in a restrained statement that surprised some members of the labor movement.

Sources said Kirkland opposed staking out a definitively negative position until he and his lawyers had thoroughly reviewed Bork’s record. Since then, labor opposition to Bork has mounted both inside the AFL-CIO and among its 89 affiliated unions.

A week after Bork’s nomination, William H. Bywater, president of the International Union of Electronic, Electrical, Technical, Salaried and Machine Workers, said Bork’s reputation as an advocate of judicial restraint “in the Reagan Administration’s dictionary . . . means the erosion of civil rights as well as employee and union rights.”

Since then, Bork’s defeat has been urged by the United Food and Commercial Workers, the Communications Workers of America, the American Federation of Teachers’ 35-member executive council, the 28-member executive board of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the United Auto Workers and the Newspaper Guild, all AFL-CIO affiliates, and by the independent United Electrical Workers.

Henry Weinstein reported from Los Angeles and Ronald J. Ostrow from Washington. Staff writer David Lauter also contributed from Washington.