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Stalled Agenda Irks Labor Leaders
Labor is eager to win passage of a "card check'' bill, a measure that would make it easier for workers to form unions, but the White House and Congress took up a Wall Street bailout plan first.
Labor activists hold signs in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) in this undated file photo. With Democrats in control of Congress and the White House, organized labor had hoped to be celebrating a long list of legislative successes this year. But so far, little has been done. (www.ufcw.org) In the health care debate, labor is seeking to avoid a tax on expensive health care benefits. But President Obama, who slammed the idea during the campaign, this summer indicated he might be open to such an idea.
The Obama administration is also encouraging creation of some charter schools, a long-time concern of teachers' unions, who fear money will be diverted from other public schools. And an increase in the minimum wage, which supporters pushed in the last Congress, when Republican George W. Bush was in the White House, hasn't even been introduced in this Congress.
"It's beyond belief to me,'' said Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. While Obama and Congress inherited "a big mess'' from Bush, Haynes said, "there aren't any excuses anymore. If you can't deliver health care, and you can't deliver jobs, and if you can't deliver [card check legislation], and you can't figure out how to take care of the working people of this great city and country, you don't deserve to stay in office.''
The poor economy and the attention demanded by such issues as health care, Afghanistan, climate change, and the pending closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison have put labor unions' concerns far down on the list in Washington, analysts and lawmakers say.
Many labor union leaders say they still have faith that Obama will push for their legislative wish list, especially the so-called card check bill to allow workers to organize unions without a secret ballot, once he gets a health care bill signed. And while unions are anxious about provisions in the health care bill that might affect union members, leaders say the larger goal of getting closer to universal health care is most important.
The White House is reassuring. "We've been able to make tremendous progress on issues important to the labor community,'' said White House spokesman Bill Burton. "We have a good partnership, and we're going to continue to work hard on issues important to the labor community.''
Still, some labor advocates within Congress are venting their frustration.
"Labor is the core of the Democratic party. Labor has always delivered for the Democratic party. But the Democratic party doesn't always deliver for labor,'' said Representative Dennis Kucinich, Democrat of Ohio. Obama "still has time,'' Kucinich said, but he added that he thinks Democrats need to step up and help workers to merit the campaign help unions can provide.
Only a small portion - 12.4 percent - of the workforce is unionized, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Excluding public employment, the percentage is even lower; just 7.4 percent of private-sector workers belong to a union. Union organizing is especially tough during a recession, said Vanderbilt University labor specialist Dan Cornfield, since people are more focused on getting and keeping a job than on securing workplace organizing rights.
But despite their low numbers, unions still corral their members to provide Democrats with crucial election help: phone banks, canvassing, and get-out-the-vote drives.
Union-sponsored political action committees are still heavy campaign contributors. In the 2007-2008 election cycle, PACs representing labor unions doled out $66.4 million to federal candidates, with 92 percent of it going to Democrats. Less than a year into the 2010 election cycle, the PACs have given almost $16 million to federal candidates, with 93 percent going to elect Democrats.
White House aides say that Obama remains committed to passing the Employee Free Choice Act, the formal name for the card check bill, and note that the president signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act early in his tenure. That law makes it easier for employees to sue for pay discrimination for a longer period of time after the alleged violations occurred.
But the bill is languishing, as Democrats and White House negotiators focus on health care and financial regulatory legislation. Obama, while giving verbal support for the bill, is not putting political muscle behind it, at least for the moment.
"A lot of folks on the left . . . thought that it would be this complete revolution in American society, and things just don't work that way,'' said Glen Spencer, executive director of the workforce freedom initiative at the US Chamber of Commerce, which opposes the card-check bill.
"The president is looking at some very significant issues, the kinds of things that really shape a legacy. This bill would be very tough to do, may not be successful, and is only going to be seen for what it is: a payoff to this large interest group that put a lot of money into their campaigns.''
National labor leaders want to take advantage of the rare political advantage of having such Democratic dominance in Washington. But they say they are willing to be patient.
"The administration has been dealt a really tough economic hand. They're doing the best they can,'' said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, said the health care bill was also important to the union, and she understood that Obama needed to get it finished first. Other leaders said that Obama has put strong union advocates in key jobs at the Department of Labor.
"On balance, he's been a very pro-labor president ,'' said Chuck Loveless, director of legislation at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. But if Obama and Congress do not deliver for labor, lawmakers may lose the campaign help they will need next year, when Democrats face serious electoral challenges, Kucinich and Spencer each said.
Representative Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio, acknowledged the labor strides Obama has made but said it was not yet enough. "The president could do much more to give visibility to the cause of working men and women in this country, and their plight,'' Kaptur said.
25 Comments so far
Show AllWorking folk have no voice in America.
Sad but true.
NOT TRUE! We have the choice to organize and boycott everything from gasoline to health insurance premiums to an unfair tax system. But what do we do instead? We go online and whine (Not you specifically, nicholas101, I'm speaking in general.) instead of organize. I've mentioned online organizing before and was scoffed at instead of a dialogue opened that just MIGHT start a ball rolling.
I've read recent articles where Michael Moore is beginning to get VERY frustrated at the public for sitting on our collective asses and not ACTING! If he is starting to feel like he is not getting anywhere in jump-starting the public, then we may just lose a GREAT motivator...AND SOON!
They say that "herding cats" is almost impossible, well I say organizing lazy Americans in even tougher. WE HAVE THE POWER OF NUMBERS! But if there are merely fragments of dissenting groups or party loyalists (no matter what) or people to afraid to "buck the system", how can ANYTHING get changed???
A prime and current example is this health "care" (We care about profits!) fiasco. How can nearly 80%--that's EIGHTY PERCENT want a Single-payer system in this country like the "adult" countries have and yet the government and their string-holding puppeteers won't allow it to be even voted on?!
WE HAVE A VOICE--but it is in a whisper....
It is a good time to look for opportunities. In New York City a combination of effort by Working Families Party and organized labor determined the outcome of recent elections for Comptroller and Public Advocate. Against the background of a disenchanted public, a determined grass roots effort can make some inroads.
I believe that we can begin to threaten local candidates and non-performing Congresspeople with challenges in the coming period. And we should.
Obama has delivered ONE thing - he has illustrated that voters can do what had seemed to be impossible. So many people voted for the first time in the last election. Given something to vote for, they will continue to do so.
Joe
Excellent, truthful and realistic post!
"Labor is eager to win passage of a "card check'' bill"
You bet they are. It's a corrupt bill that would allow corrupt unions like SEIU and the AFL-CIO to bully workers into joining. To bypass a democratic resolution to labor disagreements.
Something is needed to level; the playing field, not to exchange which is advantaged.
Pass this and its one more nail in the coffin of liberal progress, its dishonest.
To level the playing field it'd take not only a minimum of fifty years of extremely pro-labor policies IN ACTION but a complete restructuring of our government, tax policy and media.
When all that happens, in 2059, get back to me.
Then we'll have a serious talk about that "level(ing)" thing you mentioned.
We don't need pro labor policies just as we don't need the pro business policies in place now, we simply need fair labor practices where neither side has an advantage.
Think of it like our trade policies.....how about that? Fair trade agreements everyone wins....Free Trade policies and only business and foreign countries win.
By the way, since you mentioned it..."but a complete restructuring of our government, tax policy and media." I doubt we need "complete" restructuring, but some serious restructuring wouldn't go amiss, especially in the first two! Why not start.
The media are marganilizing themselves I believe.
We need to support corrupt unions, so that we can fight fire with fire. Nobody in this government does anything remotely resembling following the law of this land. Nobody on Wall Street does anything remotely resembling following the law.
Unions mean power. The power to shut down crooked CEO's and run them out of town on a rail.
FREE TRADE = MONOPOLIES (all free trade agreements are just an "end-run" around labor; outsourcing overseas slaves in place of American workers.)
UNION YES!
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
I understand the feeling, but fighting corruption with corruption simply leasves you with another corrupt group in charge. The Peasant leaders became the Barons and the Peasants are still Peasants.
You fight corruption with the law, you impose the law when you elect honset leaders and when you quit practicing selective compliance.
We at the employee/citizen level, have nothing to do with it. We elect the most honest Union leaders we can and then the ball is in their court. They frequently succumb to human greed and frailty but that's not the Union's fault. That is a fact of human nature. Not availing yourself of legal Labor Laws by not forming or joining an existing Union is just "being dumb in a public place."
UNION YES!
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
"It's beyond belief to me,'' said Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.
It's beyond belief? Why would it be beyond belief? The Democratic Party is the other capitalist party. It plays a different rolethan the Republican Party does, in actuality, a more pernicious and sneaky role, sucking in any movement of the working class that is heading in an independent direction and challenging capital. In conjunction with the Labor leadership, the Democrats' role is to head off such a movement.
As the head of a state AFL-CIO, Roberty Haynes would be, as all higher Union officials are, totally cut off from the average worker. The Dems controlled both houses and the presidency during the Carter years and not one piece of legislation important to Labor was passed. Same during the first two years of Clinton. And then there's NAFTA. The Democrats have called out the national guard on striking workers or used the taft hartley against us, Carter with the miners, Perpich during the Hormel strike.
The Labor officialdom, terrified of the potential power of their membership suppress any movement from below that threatens their peaceful relationship with the employers and the Democratic Party.
It's insulting to the average worker, the folks that pay the dues that provide them with their obscene salaries, to listen to top Labor officials whine about being betrayed, again and again.
When there was a small move around Mazzochi on the issue of a Labor Party, an army of liberals and progressives that occupy that middle layer of staffers and left wing of the Labor bureaucracy entered it to ensure it wouldn't develop in to a truly independent working class movement, and instead remained nothing but a pressure group on the Democrats. In the end it ended up a dead duck.
The liberals you see, actually have nothing but contempt for working people, see us as stupid and incapable of leadership. The Union leaders have the same view. They see the Unions as employment agencies with themselves as the CEOs.
It's a joke and an insult listening to folks like this AFL-CIO guy talk about being beyond belief. Most workers aren't; it's why they have given up voting. Haynes and others like him could and should offer an independent political alternative rather than throw their members hard earned money away on Democrats in elections, millions of dollars of it.
http://www.weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com
Richard: You hit the jackpot! Excellent analysis.
I'll say one thing...trade union leadership is fixated on the Democratic Party no matter what. They wouldn't even back the pro-labor Dem candidate in 2004 and 08, Dennis Kucinich. They mouth off about the Republicans, and how anti-union they are, which is true, but in the San Francisco area, wouldn't even support pro-labor, anti-war, and anti-Republican Independent candidate for Congress, Cindy Sheehan, in her run against the Bush/Cheney protector, the treacherous traitor, Nancy Pelosi,
Babara Boxer is the "darling of Dem apologists as the shining liberal, and she has done nothing to promote EFCA. Feinstein, a Dem only in name only, opposes it. (my two U.S. Senators)
I remember when Mazzochi formed the Labor Party, and saw it's demise soon after. The average American working man and woman, prefers remaining ignorant of the facts, and wonder why they are losing everything.
Time to abandon the "one-party" system (Republicrats) brothers and sisters...it doesn't work for us.
Workers don't have the money to buy the votes in Congress.
It is astounding that nobody associates the obscene amounts of money that Corporations(especially insurance)are spending to buy Congressional votes with the obscene profits and salaries in the for-profit insurance industry.
?
99: Absolutely! In the 1950's and early 60's, "lobbyists" would gave radio station disc jokeys "payola" (money) to play a certain record more than usual to promote it, and some of these dee jays were convicted and some jailed for this activity. Today we call payola, "campaign contributions" by corporate lobbyists.
henry did you miss the fox site again? have you ever been in
a union? do you know what its like to not have to go to
work and not have to take any shit from your boss?
to get a pension and not a 401k? to have real health
insurance? to have job security to not be able to be fired at will thats what unions do and not all are corrupt! unions
are often a microcosm of what ever government form is in
power. the teamsters are on the verge of collapse from lack of organizing and a criminal president and flunkies in washington.
however that doesn't mean the locals are crooked. if the
presidents of labor locals were sens and congress people
there would be a lot less corruption and criminality in
washington right now. and the right thing would be done
for the citizens instead of corporations! get your
facts straight!
Tell the Truth:
Excellent comments. Well said!
tell the truth
I'd suggest to you that opposing Card Check does not mean anyone is opposed to Unions.
Yes, I've been in a union. And I don't buy the big unions hyperbole. Nor does any disagreement to the party line or the politically correct answer of the moment mean anyone is "Foxing" And frankly I find the White House's comments on Fox to be childish since you mentioned Fox.
Of course all unions are not corrupt. The AFL-CIO and Sterns SEIU certainly are corrupt, right doewn to their toenails. They do nothing to protect the American worker, they only feather their own nests (and pockets) Andy Stern is flat dishonest and taking millions.
"to get a pension and not a 401k? to have real health
insurance? to have job security to not be able to be fired at will"
You'd better check the unions I mentioned to see how well they are fulfilling your criteria. Hundreds of thousands of American workers have lost their jobs under the AFL-CIO to non-citizens. The Auto Workers union has certainly taken care of their current members, but not their retired members.
They could care less as long as they get their dues.
Card check is a corrupt attempt to circumvent voting by members to give the yea and nea to a union. If the card check vote is yea, under this bill, you have de facto created a union, because the business is OBLIGATED to start negotiating with the Union immediately. I would suggest you read the legislation.
WE are in complete agreement about most local unions, they are usually staffed by local folks voted in by local folks.
Edit...I forgot to point out that that mandate to negotiate preceeded a secret vote, card check is public...so I believe you can see the coersion evident there. Sorry I forgot to make that point clear.
"the business is OBLIGATED to start negotiating with the Union immediately."
And what is wrong with that? Big Business needs to be put under a chastity belt as it is for being naughty to the working class !
Yes, there is money management problems and labor union leaders need to come clean and be nice to its members but that's another headache to be dealt with after we first get EFCA passed.
"And what is wrong with that? Big Business needs to be put under a chastity belt as it is for being naughty to the working class !"
Because it is based no a non secret ballot, because it is not a vote to have a union, yet it de facto establishes one, its supposed to be a vote to have a vote on having a union.
The options for abuse of the process are enless. Its a bad bill and certainly not democratic in nature.
"Representative Marcy Kaptur, Democrat of Ohio, acknowledged the labor strides Obama has made ..."
Marcy Kaptur is one of the better in Congress on domestic issues, but seriously, I would like to know more about the "labor strides" Obama has made. This is not a rhetorical question.
Joe
Well, organized labor IGNORED Kucinich, Mckinney, Nader, etc ... and now they're upset ?!?!? If "labor" would get its hearts and minds in order and stop following the "have to vote winnable Democrat" mantra, EFCA would have been a reality. ARRRGH !
Obama inherited a big mess, but has a supermajority in both Houses of Congress, which is not a "tough hand."
This paragraph says it all:
...Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO. While Obama and Congress inherited "a big mess'' from Bush, Haynes said, "there aren't any excuses anymore. If you can't deliver health care, and you can't deliver jobs, and if you can't deliver [card check legislation], and you can't figure out how to take care of the working people of this great city and country, you don't deserve to stay in office.''
henry i say these things because i was a teamster rep. some of
the things you mentioned are indeed 1000% correct. but unions
act top down and after 8 years of bush all that these guys were able to steal they did. no controls and they were and are just
as corrupt as dick and george. these guys are either going
to get busted by the feds or sent packing by fed up members
who were too stupid to vote for the right people. unions
don't need politicians they need tough no bs guys to make
companies knuckle under. and if you check the us chamber of
congress you will find they were a prime mover of jobs
overseas. unions don't make laws. our us government was
responsible for the movement of jobs overseas as well.
nothing i ever did in my work life was as satisfying as
beating down one of the most dishonest and criminal
corps. in america. it was like winning a lotto everyday
catching them in some corruption or union violation and
kicking their teeth out one by one. the card check is an
other matter entirely. no matter how much money unions give to
politicians it will never be enough. corps. have much deeper pockets
and politicians play a game shaking out their pockets.
until third party candidates are voted in and again americans
are incapable of doing that then these are the clowns we are
stuck with! this will not get done by obama they gave
him too much moneyfor him to screw them and
he might end up like jfk for his efforts. lets face it
until further notice amerika is a company town!
tell the truth
Fair enough.
Then its time to give them notice that we don't want a company town anymore. The US Chamber of Commerce is nothing but a shill for big business, they care noting for our country. Its time to protect the American worker. Without a job a man or woman has few options which you know well.
As an ex-rep you can understand my opposition to card check better than most. Without a secret ballot the worker is just as vulnerable to union abuse as company abuse. Something indeed needs to be done to correct the imbalance, but this is not it.
Third Party is a distant possibility. I'm watching what the Tea Partiers are doing now, its very interesting. They are opposing the RNC establishment and trying to get grassroots candidates on the ballot. They are organizing and working for non-establishment candidates.
Thats what liberals should be doing, take the Democratic party back from these idiots.
Pax