Secy. Dole Defends Bush in Eastern Strike

Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole said today organized labor has an improved relationship with the Bush Administration despite the President’s refusal to let government intervene in the Eastern Airlines strike.

“I think it’s clear that we have a positive relationship in that they believe the door is open, that I want a continuing dialogue, that the President does,” Dole said after meeting privately with AFL-CIO leaders.

“I understand that there are issues where we’ll have to agree to disagree. Eastern is one of them. All right, so be it. We have to agree to disagree there,” she said.

Again defending President Bush’s veto of legislation that would have created a panel to resolve the Eastern dispute, Dole said there had been no favoritism toward management.

Some union officials contend that Bush unfairly sided with Frank Lorenzo, head of Texas Air Corp., Eastern’s parent company. Labor considers Lorenzo a union-buster who has refused to try to settle the strike through arbitration.

“I feel Mr. Lorenzo’s labor policies leave a lot to be desired,” Dole said.

Bush was right to veto the legislation because transportation was not disrupted in any region of the country because of the strike, she said.

“Why are we arguing about it? I think it’s clear,” she said to reporters.

Union officials said earlier that Bush’s attitude toward organized labor appears to be a marked improvement from the Reagan era, but they doubt there’s been a substantive shift in policy.

The Administration deserves credit for its involvement in the Pittston coal strike--Dole met with both sides and appointed a “super mediator”--and for compromising on labor’s long-sought hike in the minimum wage, union leaders said.

But they also complain that Bush, while praising worker movements abroad such as Solidarity in Poland, has demonstrated “union busting” tendencies at home with the Eastern veto.

“I give Bush and Liz Dole an A-plus on Pittston and a zero on Eastern,” said Joyce Miller, vice president of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union.