Congress Caved In to Unions on Trade: Reagan

President Reagan today charged Congress with caving in to organized labor with its trade bill, but supporters of the measure said it is his “wishful thinking” that a veto would win him a version he prefers.

Reagan has promised to veto the bill because of a provision requiring all but the smallest employers to give 60 days notice of plant closings and large-scale layoffs.

As the Senate began debate on the sweeping trade measure today, Reagan told a group of conservative state legislators that the plant-closings provision “would make American industry less competitive.”

“Put simply, on key provisions in the trade bill, the Democratic leadership in Congress has caved in to pressure from organized labor,” Reagan said. “If this bill is unloaded on my desk, I’ll stamp it ‘reject’ and ship it back to where it was made.”

Lobbying Senators

The House passed the bill Thursday, with Democrats achieving more than the two-thirds vote needed to override a Reagan veto.

The White House continued lobbying senators today to vote with Reagan, arguing that it would force Congress to send him a bill without the plant-closing provision.

“That’s wishful thinking,” Senate Majority Leader Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) said as Senate debate began this morning. If enough senators voted to sustain the veto, “we would be taking a severe chance in not having this legislation become law,” he said, “And I would argue that we not gamble.”

Byrd said a Senate vote on the 1,000-page bill will not come before Tuesday evening, and that although he is confident it will pass he is not sure he could muster the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. The House vote on the legislation was 312 to 107.

170 Amendments Last Time

If Reagan’s veto is sustained, Byrd said the trade bill--a product of years of work and a House-Senate compromise on competing bills that passed last year--will have to start over from scratch.

“This matter is not going to be turned around that easily and that quickly,” Byrd said, noting there were 170 amendments the last time it was before the Senate.