Labor: Don’t take us for granted

Bill Knight column for 5-20, 21 or 22, 2019

Many unionists are encouraged by Democrats’ presidential field for the 2020 election, which in recent weeks expanded to include New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and former Vice President Joe Biden, who join Sens. Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, and more than a dozen others as of press time.

At the North America’s Building Trades labor conference last month in Washington, Democratic contenders talked about outlawing “Right to Work” laws forbidding unions from charging fees to pay for the costs of negotiating and enforcing contracts. Also, the Fire Fighters became the first union to endorse, recommending Biden the day he spoke at a Pittsburgh Teamsters hall, when Biden promoted the “$15 and the union” campaign and blasted the Trump administration’s support of union-busting.

However, some labor leaders want more, asking candidates to focus more clearly on organized labor and its core issues, and saying candidates are spending too much time talking about more obscure issues such as Senate filibusters and the makeup of the Supreme Court. These voices insist candidates must pay attention to what working-class Americans feel is of prime importance: jobs.

A few other distractions appealing to progressives in general also were criticized at a Las Vegas conference in April, from Medicare for All to the Green New Deal.

Democrats are too concerned about the environment, commented Ken Broadbent, business manager of the Pittsburgh-based Steamfitters Local 449.

“Jobs is where we’ve got to keep things focused,” he said.

Ted Pappageorge, president of the Las Vegas Culinary Union, which represents tens of thousands of hotel and casino workers, added, “They’ve got to pay attention to kitchen-table economics.”

Such feedback, along with others complaining of “identity politics,” may be warning signs for Democrats. After all, many U.S. working people, including many union members, voted for Trump in 2016.

Still, the competition in the crowded field may have strengthened the clout of unions and workers’ concerns after years of being taken for granted. Another plus is reminding candidates that organized labor has significant financial resources as well as “boots on the ground” for phone-banking, get-out-the-vote efforts, etc.

Contributions to federal candidates, parties and committees from labor hit a record high in 2016: $218 million, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), led last year by the National Education Association and the Carpenters. (In fact, since 1990, the amount of contributions from labor increased by more than 300 percent, CRP noted.)

Almost 90 percent of contributions from labor go to Democrats, but unions also have supported moderate Republicans. CRP says that 14 percent of labor’s 2018 contributions went to GOP candidates or causes, led by the Airline Pilots Association and the National Air Traffic Controllers union. That’s twice as much as 2010’s donations

Some labor leaders, such as Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, are excited about prospects for 2020.

She said that many presidential candidates have supported strikes by teachers on the West Coast and United Food & Commercial Workers at Stop & Shop in the Northeast, and several contenders have proposed increasing taxes on the wealthy – an idea that most previous candidates were reluctant to endorse.

“It feels different than at other times,” Weingarten said. “There is far more attention and focus on working people’s economic needs.”

Other early endorsements are unlikely, in contrast to three years ago, when international unions’ leadership was criticized by the rank-and-file for backing Hillary Clinton before most primaries or debates.

“Union presidents’ apparent aversion to early endorsements [now] falls in stark contrast to their behavior before the last presidential election,” says CRP’s Camille Erickson. “Leading up to the 2016 elections, many unions threw endorsements in rapid fire at Hillary Clinton, to the dismay of some members. By late 2015, Clinton had about a dozen endorsements from unions while Sanders only had two.”