SENATE OKS HALF OF NONUNION LABOR PACKAGE.

Byline: Jim Abrams Associated Press 

Republicans seeking to reshape labor-management relations won Senate approval Wednesday of a bill promoting nonunion work groups at the nation's plants and offices. But they fell short on another measure that would have nationalized right-to-work laws.

The administration said President Clinton would veto the nonunion-groups bill on grounds that it would encourage ``company unions'' and undermine the nation's long tradition of collective bargaining.

It would make it easier for employers and employees to meet to discuss quality control and other issues - something the Republicans said was only ``common sense.''

The bill passed 53-46 on a near party-line vote.

That came after the Senate rejected, by 68-31, a motion to cut off debate and move to final action on legislation to eliminate state laws that require workers who benefit from a union contract to pay union dues even if they are not members. The vote was 29 short of the 60 needed in the Senate to end debate on legislation.

Currently, 21 states have ``right-to-work'' laws barring any such requirements, and the bill's sponsor, Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., said it should become national law because an employee ``should not be coerced to pay union dues just to keep his job.''

The two votes followed Senate passage Tuesday of a minimum wage increase, an issue that has divided the Senate for months, and highlighted dramatic differences between the parties on the future of labor relations.

Some Republicans contended that Democrats are in the pocket of organized labor. Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, in arguing for the right-to-work law, asked: ``Should a man or a woman in the greatest and freest country in the history of the world be forced to join a union to have a right to work?''

But Democrats said Republicans are undermining worker rights.

`This is probably the most anti-worker Congress we've seen in my lifetime,'' said Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

The bill, sponsored by Labor Committee Chairwoman Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., would amend the National Labor Relations Act to make clear that employers can convene groups of nonunion employees to discuss such issues as health and safety, productivity and efficiency.

Kassebaum said the bill clearly bars companies from trying to thwart union activities. ``It only represents common sense, it's not in any way designed to be a destroyer of the unions.''

But Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., the ranking Democrat on the Labor Committee, said some 30,000 companies already have worker-management groups and in only 15 cases in recent years has the National Labor Relations Board voiced objections. ``It is a solution to a problem that doesn't exist,'' he said. ``It puts management in control on both sides of the bargaining table.''