|
|
Prospects for
organized labor’s
legislative agenda rapidly fading |
|
From left: AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and John Sweeney, who handed the reins to Trumka when he retired as the president of the labor federation, stand on stage Sept. 15, 2009, at the AFL-CIO conference at the David L. Lawrence center in Pittsburgh. |
By
Lisa Mascaro (contact),
Michael Mishak (contact)
Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010 | 2 a.m.
When Richard Trumka ascended a stage in Pittsburgh last
year to accept the presidency of AFL-CIO, he vowed to
reinvigorate a flagging labor movement beset by
globalization, corporate power and union infighting.
The burly third-generation mine worker pledged victories
on health care and labor law reforms, goals that had
eluded his predecessors. With the election of President
Barack Obama and Democrats in control of Congress,
Trumka said labor’s political moment had arrived — and
unions would not be denied.
After less than five months, that moment is rapidly
fading and the prospects for organized labor’s
legislative agenda are growing dimmer. Union leaders are
warning that failures on big-ticket items could
boomerang on Democrats in November, with union members
staying home on Election Day.
Consider the landscape:
Health care legislation is in limbo; the Republican
victory in the Massachusetts last month stripped Senate
Democrats of the 60-vote majority needed to overcome GOP
opposition. And Democratic leaders in the House and
Senate remain divided over differences in their
chambers’ respective bills.
Unions see health care reform as key to advancing the
labor movement. By taking one of the most contentious
and expensive items off the bargaining table, labor
leaders argue that employers would be more willing to
negotiate first contracts with unions.
On labor law reform, Democrats and Republicans say
labor’s No. 1 priority — a bill that would make it
easier for workers to organize — is all but dead.
Consecutive party losses, first in governor races in New
Jersey and Virginia last year and then in the
Massachusetts Senate race, have rattled Democrats facing
re-election, including Nevada Rep. Dina Titus. That
sense of political vulnerability makes a fragile
compromise on so-called card-check legislation brokered
last year even shakier.
No doubt battered by the recession, the country’s
unionization rate slid to 12.3 percent last year,
according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For the
first time, a majority of union members are government
workers rather than private-sector employees.
Union officials — and the labor secretary — used the
report to argue that labor law reform is needed to level
the playing field.
Labor experts and political scientists say failures on
health care and labor law in Washington could have dire
implications for Democrats at home in November,
dispiriting a crucial constituency needed to spread the
party’s message and turn out voters, particularly in
nonpresidential elections when voter participation is
traditionally low. In Nevada, the fallout could further
imperil the re-election of Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid, who is facing low approval ratings.
The business community, led by the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, has reveled in the bad news for Democrats and
continues a multimillion-dollar public relations
campaign against the Employee Free Choice Act. The group
released a national poll this week that found 52 percent
oppose making it easier for unions to organize
workplaces.
Indeed, attitudes toward unions appear to be shifting.
In August, Gallup found the approval rating for labor
unions had fallen to 48 percent, down 11 points from
2008 and the lowest since the organization began gauging
reaction in 1936. The rating held around 60 percent for
the past decade.
At the National Press Club in Washington last month,
Trumka renewed his push for health care and labor law
reform, warning that inaction could lead to a repeat of
1994, when Democrats lost control of Congress. Labor’s
priorities were the same then: jobs, corporate
regulation and health care reform. Instead, Trumka said
the Clinton administration passed the North American
Free Trade Agreement and empowered Wall Street. Unions,
he said, couldn’t persuade enough members to go to the
polls.
“No matter what I say or do, the reality is that when
unemployment is 10 percent and rising, working people
will not stand for tokenism,” Trumka said. “We will not
vote for politicians who think they can push a few
crumbs our way and then continue the failed economic
policies of the last 30 years.”
To be sure, the Obama administration and Democrats have
rewarded labor with fair pay legislation and the
overturning President George W. Bush’s ban on project
labor agreements for federal construction.
Also, Obama appointed union-friendly Labor Secretary
Hilda Solis and shifted the Labor Department’s mission
from “compliance assistance” to “vigorous enforcement.”
The administration has hired hundreds of inspectors to
crack down on workplace safety and wage-and-hour
violations — and is seeking more positions in its 2011
budget.
Obama is seeking to make the National Labor Relations
Board more friendly to labor, appointing three lawyers,
including Craig Becker, an associate general counsel to
the AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International
Union. Republican Sen. John McCain, however, blocked
Becker’s confirmation because of his ties to labor.
Becker’s nomination is in question because Senate
Democrats lost their 60-vote majority.
Still, those moves don’t easily lend themselves to a
campaign mailer or political rhetoric. Even key parts of
the economic stimulus package, such as tax credits and
unemployment assistance, don’t pack the populist punch
of health care or labor law reform.
“Saving jobs is invisible,” said Nelson Lichtenstein, a
labor historian at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. “You need an accomplishment that is clear. No
matter what unions try to do, their members and the
friends of their members will be demobilized.
“That’s why something like health care is so important.
People will say, ‘What have you done for me?’ And the
answer is, ‘Nothing or not much.’ ”
On labor law, Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO’s legislative
director, said the union would try to enlist moderate
Republicans but acknowledged the difficulty of achieving
a bipartisan bill. He said the federation might consider
“other tactics,” meaning the card-check legislation or
key parts of it could be placed into a larger jobs bill
this year.
Democrat Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, chairman of the Senate
Labor Committee, suggested that was the bill’s fate.
“Maybe it won’t be card check,” he said, referring to
the full bill. “But there are some things we need to do
to straighten out the process for (union) elections and
certification and first contract.”
Amy Dean, the former head of the AFL-CIO’s Silicon
Valley office who has written about reshaping the
American labor movement, said labor’s current lot is in
part the result of failing to learn the lessons of the
early 1990s.
“In the Clinton years, the labor movement let the White
House and the Democrats lead — and we got rolled,” she
said. “We have to be prepared to put forward our own
vision for the economy ... We have to stop giving our
money away and working for people who aren’t working for
our needs.”
Dean said labor should use the Obama jobs bill, which
could include labor law reform and taxes to discourage
outsourcing, as a condition for its support in November.
“If you walk away with the same outcome from a friendly
administration as you do an oppositional one, you need
to rethink how you’re exercising your influence.”
(Back
to Index)
 |
