Well, a tip of the hat to some people in labor for reaching down and remembering they have a few cojones left--or maybe it was reaching deep into their pockets and remembering that they have the money, and there are a lot of people (read: politicians) who will do just about anything to get a check. Like vote against fast-track and the Trans Pacific Partnership.
I had heard a bit about this recently. And here we go--the spigot is off, via The Wall Street Journal:
Dozens of major labor unions plan to freeze campaign contributions to members of Congress to pressure them to oppose fast-track trade legislation sought by President Barack Obama , according to labor officials.
The move is part of the unions’ campaign against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, which the Obama administration is negotiating with 11 nations around the Pacific Ocean. The unions worry the trade agreement could send more jobs to low-wage countries, including Vietnam and Malaysia.
Unions have opposed the TPP through demonstrations, letters to lawmakers and political ads, but withholding political contributions is a more forceful way of flexing their muscle. In the 2014 midterm elections, unions—the lifeblood of the Democratic Party—contributed about $65 million from their political-action committee, or PACs, to candidates, nearly all Democrats.
“Every single union in the AFL-CIO has agreed to join together to send Congress a message that if you mess with one of us you mess with all of us,” Harold Schaitberger, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said Monday at the union’s legislative conference in Washington. “We need to cut the spigot off.”
The firefighters spearheaded the effort by challenging other union presidents to follow suit at an AFL-CIO executive council meeting in Atlanta last month. The union said it took the lead because fast track would create job losses, which would hurt communities’ tax bases and their ability to fund public services.[emphasis added]
I do have to give particular credit to Schaitberger who has been pretty relentless about pushing the view that labor should punish members of Congress--mainly, we're talking about Democrats--who vote against the interests of unions members and working people. A decade ago (my god, how time flies), I
argued that every single one of those Democrats--15--who had voted for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) should be punished, with primary opponents and, certainly, not giving those traitorous 15 a single dollar, dollars raised from the hard-working members of unions. (as an aside, I took special pride in
being attacked for that particular blog post by none-other-than The New York Times editorial board--one of the most shameless traditional media promoters of so-called "free trade").
At the time, Schaitberger, again, to his credit, took up the call against CAFTA, organizing a letter to Nancy Pelosi, expressing outrage that any Democrat would consider voting for CAFTA. As I wrote back then, what burned Schaitberger most was that he and a few other union leaders had just hosted a fundraiser for some of the most vulnerable Democratic members (the so-called “Frontline Candidates”). When I spoke to him at the time, he said:
“We had just, a week ago, a very few of us initiated a major fundraising effort to raise money specifically for these ten, highly targeted members that the leadership has asked us to afford special attention and support. We raised $300,000, we maxed out on every one of those members. And, then we find out three days later that two of them appears have indicated are for CAFTA.”
“I said no way. They have the right to cast a vote and make a political decision but the leadership doesn’t have the right to put them in a special category and then ask us for a special effort on our behalf and, then, they are going to go against a core issue of the labor movement. We can no longer give a pass on these issues.”
“A Democrat who votes for CAFTA, if we haven’t already given them money, will not get a dollar from us. We have to decide how egregious the [behavior is]. I point out Melissa’s (Bean) position, she would not be in this Congress if it were not for the labor movement. And, then, to potentially cast such a crucial vote I think is unconscionable. And I would be able to do whatever it takes to hold them accountable. This is a bright line issue for labor. ”
In particular, Schaitberger should be praised because he could fall for the usual nonsense that trade votes don't hurt public sector workers--but he didn't. Not back then, and not now.
I detail this at length because, in my opinion, had the labor movement taken out some of those who voted for CAFTA--which passed by only TWO VOTES--we might not be facing the votes we face now on fast-track and the TPP. Not to mention had unions went after the Democrats who took Bill Clinton and Robert Reich's bribes back during the NAFTA vote, we might have avoided CAFTA as well (I mean "bribes" in the sense that it has been well-documented that Clinton-Reich bought votes with promises of a variety of appropriations and goodies and phony retraining programs to get votes).
Of course, the real question will be: when the vote comes, what does labor do to those who actually vote for these putrid bills? That will be telling.
But, for now, kudos to Trumka, Schaitberger and the other union presidents.