San Francisco Day of Action by
CWA Union, April 4, 2011
Last week, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka
declared labor's "independence" from the Democrats, saying "You'll see us giving less to party structure, and more to our own structure."
What you're about to see is, we're going to do a full-time, around the calendar political program that's going to be mobilizing and educating people 12 months a year, 24 months a cycle, as opposed to doing it till Election Day and dismantling it. We're going to keep people in place, and actually make people pay a price [if they don't keep promises]. We'll start running some of our own, in state races.
This echoes the decision by the firefighters' union to put their money where they think it will help the most, in local fights. They've frozen federal political spending.
Most observers will think there's an empty threat there, of labor abandoning the Dems. Where else are they going to go? Well, in this case, they'll still be fighting for Dems, but at the local rather than federal level. As Greg Sargent points out, Wisconsin has "altered the calculus for labor."
The surprising organizing success labor and state-level Dems have had there, combined with the fact that Republicans and conservatives are increasingly committed to pursuing anti-union initiatives in multiple states, may produce a real shift in labor’s strategy, in which resources really do get redirected to local organizing and state-level battles.
He goes on to talk about what national Dems can do about this, and comes to the obvious conclusion: fight for the right of unions to have fair elections. Which they have the opportunity to do right now, in the conference committee for the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization bill. Recall that the House passed a version of the bill that makes organizing in the airline and railroad industries much more difficult, by allowing unfair elections. Back to Greg:
The White House has threatened to veto the bill if it includes the anti-union provision. It's now in the midst of conference negotiations, where Senate Dems are being pushed by unions to stand firm and not allow the provision into the final legislation. The Communication Workers of America has taken the lead against the initiative, but other unions also view it as a priority.
Whether or not you believe labor's threat to soften support for national Dems in 2012, it would be folly to take full-blown union support for granted—in 2010, recall, turnout among union households dropped significantly. Standing firm in this FAA fight would be a good way for national Dems to restore organized labor's confidence that the national party will fight for labor’s priorities—and hence is worth labor's maximum time and money.
All eyes are now on the Senate Dem negotiators: Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Bill Nelson (D-FL), Max Baucus (D-MT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Barbara Boxer (D-CA). And of course, the White House, which needs to stand firm behind its veto threat.