Clinton Wins Striker-Replacement Fight : Labor: Senate GOP withdraws bid to block President’s order, which allows sanctions against firms that hire permanent substitutes during walkouts.

WASHINGTON — After days of political wrangling, Senate Republicans on Wednesday admitted defeat and withdrew their bid to block an executive order protecting striking workers, a measure President Clinton had signed last week.

In a clear victory for the White House, Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) announced late Wednesday that Senate Republicans no longer would seek to amend an emergency defense budget bill to include a provision barring federal agencies from enforcing Clinton’s order.

The order would allow the agencies to cut off contracts to companies that hire permanent replacements for striking workers. Republicans had attacked the directive as a flagrant presidential intrusion into Congress’ responsibility for setting labor policy.

Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum of Kansas, the moderate Republican who had pressed the amendment, vowed Wednesday that she would try to block Clinton’s order “again and again” on the Senate floor.

But Democrats were gleeful that they had successfully used Senate rules to put the Republicans on the defensive on an issue dear to many American workers.

Calling Wednesday’s concession by Republicans “a gratifying victory for Democrats,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said: “It’s regrettable that the Republican majority in the Senate is attempting to use its power to side with management against American workers.”

Dole’s decision came after Senate opponents of the amendment tried and failed for a second time to kill Kassebaum’s measure. But Wednesday’s vote of 58 to 39 made it clear that backers of the amendment could not muster the 60 votes needed to shut off further debate and move to a vote.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, joined by a firm likely to be directly affected by Clinton’s order, sought court action to block the measure.

In a suit filed in federal court, the Chamber of Commerce appealed to a judge to stop the Administration from enforcing the order. Joined by Bridgestone/Firestone Inc., a tire-maker that has hired permanent replacements for its striking workers, the Chamber of Commerce charged that Clinton has intruded into Congress’ traditional bailiwick of setting federal labor policy and violated the constitutional separation of powers.

Unless the judge in that suit grants a preliminary injunction against Clinton’s order, Bridgestone/Firestone is likely to be among the first companies affected.

Clinton’s executive order would cover the approximately 28,000 companies nationwide that do more than $100,000 worth of business with the federal government yearly. It would allow the labor secretary to cut off that business when he or she finds that a company has replaced its striking workers with permanent replacements.

In proposing the amendment to the emergency defense supplemental appropriations bill, Kassebaum initially took pains to argue that the amendment was not designed to “embarrass” the President. “The President has, in my view, overstepped his bounds,” she said in introducing the amendment.

But the debate that turned first on legalities quickly became a no-holds-barred political brawl as Republicans denounced the executive order and Democrats portrayed Republicans as hostile to American workers.

“We are opposed to this special-interest power grab because it is fundamentally wrong, fundamentally rotten,” said Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.). Gramm called Clinton’s order a “payoff” to “greedy special interests” who would deny business owners the right to run their businesses according to principles of free choice and workers the right to work for companies that will hire them.

In other action Wednesday, the Senate gave its final approval to a measure that would ease federal burdens on state and local governments, an initiative that is part of the House GOP’s “contract with America”.

The bill, approved 91 to 9, is a compromise version of the “unfunded mandates” bill passed earlier by the House and Senate. It is expected to pass the House later this week and be sent to Clinton, who supports it. Sen. Dirk Kempthorne (R-Ida.) called passage of the measure “a significant victory because it is going to change how Congress operates.”

The bill requires Congress in most cases to pay fully for the programs and standards it dictates to state and local governments.