JOHN NICHOLS | Cap Times associate editor | Posted: Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Earlier this month in a Nation magazine cover story, I looked at one of the most positive trends in recent labor history: a pattern of unions signaling that they will put more of their “political” money into grass-roots organizing and coalition building — as opposed to placing the movement’s financial and foot-soldier resources at the service of whatever Democratic candidate happens to be on the ballot.
Unions such as the Service Employees International Union and National Nurses United are investing in smart, grass-roots projects in the states — seeking to build on the protest and politics model developed here in Wisconsin, where mass protests against anti-labor initiatives signaled an opening for labor to go on the offensive. At the same time, key unions such as the Firefighters have signaled that, because of their disappointment with Republicans and Democrats at the federal level, they will be putting all their political money into state and local races and related projects.
Now AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is stepping up with a plan for unions to declare “independence” and back candidates — no matter what their party affiliation — who are committed to support workers and their unions.
Trumka, who was in Wisconsin early and has visited most of the states where battles over labor rights and cuts in public services are playing out, has made no secret of his interest in building on the energy of the new state-based movements.
It is with this in mind that he is now talking about changing the way labor practices politics. And that’s a very good thing.
“We are looking hard at how we work in the nation’s political arena. We have listened hard, and what workers want is an independent labor movement that builds the power of working people — in the workplace and in political life,” the AFL-CIO president said in a Friday address to the National Press Club that could turn out to be one of the most important speeches of the 2012 election cycle. “Our role is not to build the power of a political party or a candidate. It is to improve the lives of working families and strengthen our country.”
Trumka is not saying that labor unions will no longer back the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates — up to and including President Obama. As in the past, labor will lean toward the party of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman. What Trumka is saying, however, is that labor will not simply back Democrats because they are Democrats.
Indeed, he was putting compromise-prone and all-talk-no-action Democrats on notice.
“We’ll be less inclined to support people in the future that aren’t standing up and actually supporting job creation and the type of things that we’re talking about. It doesn’t matter what party they come from. It will be a measuring stick,” Trumka explained on the eve of the speech.
The address itself is reasonably blunt in its dismissal of Democratic officials who think they can make draconian cuts in education and public services — or that they can undermine union rights — simply by claiming that the Republicans would make crueler cuts.
“It doesn’t matter if candidates and parties are controlling the wrecking ball or simply standing aside — the outcome is the same either way,” says Trumka. “If leaders aren’t blocking the wrecking ball and advancing working families’ interests, working people will not support them. This is where our focus will be — now, in 2012 and beyond.”
Practically, what Trumka is talking about is replacing the traditional pre-election mobilization of the union faithful with year-round organizing that is more oriented toward issues and immediate struggles.
But, as is always the case with Trumka when the AFL-CIO president is at his best, there is an idealistic component to the initiative.
At the root of Trumka’s message is an idea that needs to be returned to the center of the political discourse.
“America’s real deficit is a moral deficit — where political choices come down to forcing foster children to wear hand-me-downs while cutting taxes for profitable corporations,” says Trumka, who adds that “powerful political forces are seeking to silence working people — to drive us out of the national conversation” so that these issues are not raised.
If organized labor seeks to add that moral message to the debate, and if it uses its still-considerable political muscle to back those Democrats, Greens, independents and, yes, Republicans who are willing to embrace the message, it could become as influential a player in the 2012 election cycle as the tea party movement was in 2010.
To do this, however, Trumka and his allies must be conscious of two requirements:
1. They have to start at the grass roots, by supporting the labor, farm, student and community coalitions that are resisting cuts in states across the country this year — and that are fighting any attempt by politicians of both parties in Washington to undermine Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Building and strengthening these coalitions in 2011 in states such as Wisconsin, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania — all of which happen to be presidential battleground states — is the single best investment in progressive, pro-labor politics heading into the 2012 cycle. It creates an infrastructure that is not just about winning one election for one candidate or party but that seeks to achieve practical ends, both immediately and in the long term.
2. Labor must be ready to put real pressure on the Democrats, by supporting smart primary challenges (as they did to some extent in 2010) and by withholding money from incumbents who have let them down. Labor must look for Republicans who are willing to break with their party on key issues — something that the union movement historically did with such success that, into the 1990s, there were Republican legislators in states across the country (and a few members of the U.S. House and Senate) who maintained strong pro-labor voting records. And labor must recognize the value of independent and third-party campaigns that, with sufficient union backing in communities such as Madison where an independent labor-left infrastructure has been or might be established, could elect pro-union stalwarts and put real pressure on both major parties.
Ultimately, party labels mean very little. It’s the policies that matter. And to the extent that the labor movement recognizes this fundamental political reality, we will have a better politics in Madison, in Wisconsin and across the United States.
John Nichols is the associate editor of The Capital Times. jnichols@madison.com
Copyright 2011 madison.com.
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