Labor Pays Its Dues
July 23, 2004
Conservatives charge that union dues are the mother's milk of the Democratic Party. And so it should be, counters Tasini unapologetically. The real problem, he argues, is that once in power, Democratic politicians forget to advocate for the folks who got them there.
Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group and writes his "Working In America" columns for TomPaine.com on an occasional basis.
As is true every four years, a large percentage of delegates at next week’s Democratic Convention will be union members. And every four years, the Republicans and their anti-union machine will start carping about the influence of the labor movement in the election, claiming all sorts of illegalities. So, let’s make it clear: Unions will, and should, pour millions of dollars into the election effort—and nothing about what they do is illegal or even wrong.
The flavor of the diatribes-to-come is captured by a recent book written by Linda Chavez, who had to withdraw as George Bush’s first nominee for secretary of labor when it was discovered she broke the law by not paying social security taxes for a woman she illegally employed in her home. With the understated title, Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics , Chavez tries to paint a picture of some underhanded electoral scheme by, in her oft-repeated words, “Big Labor."
The book itself is mostly filled with name calling and is really a bitter, poorly researched payback for her failed nomination, though Chavez conveniently does not mention that she broke the law. A typical chapter is called “Legalized Terrorism,” but so much of it made me laugh—for example, she calls AFL-CIO President John Sweeney a “Marxist” who preaches labor’s “far-left” agenda. No insult to Sweeney, but if he’s a Marxist, George Bush is a “compassionate” conservative.
What really comes through in the book, (which irks Republicans to no end) is the obvious political reality: Unions have been effective politically in recent electoral cycles. Or at least, it can be said that without unions, the Democrats would be in far worse shape than they are in terms of sheer numbers in Congress. Without labor’s political mobilization, Republicans would perhaps have a filibuster-proof Senate (if you’re a pro-environment or pro-choice voter, you can thank labor for stopping some very bad judges from ascending to the bench) and far more members in the House.
Republican attacks can be boiled down to two basic lines, so let’s address each one here. First, they claim unions are breaking campaign finance laws. Under the law, unions cannot take members’ dues and give it as direct campaign contributions to candidates. However, they can use members’ dues to inform their members about the union’s support for a particular candidate. They can organize phone banks and other outreach methods to persuade members, and they can expend dues to help get their members to the polls.
You will hear Republicans allege all sorts of illegalities: Union phone banks that are supposedly calling non-union voters; secret coordination of dues-funded activities with candidates or the Democratic Party. They are phantoms—if they had evidence, you know they wouldn’t hesitate to lay the case before a sympathetic judge. It’s nonsense.
Second, Republicans claim that union leaders are spending money (overwhelmingly in support of Democrats) in contradiction to union members’ views. It is true that a minority of union members vote Republican. But the emphasis is on the word “minority”—they do not reflect the majority of the sentiment of most, if any, unions. If they did, they would vote out union leaders and elect those who would turn their efforts to convince members to vote Republican. But Republicans have a problem with democracy, whether we are talking about union internal elections or elections in the workplace where workers have the opportunity to choose a union.
I think part of the perception problem has been that the language framing the role of money in politics has thrown unions and corporations together, as if they are both the same problem or have the same motivations. Unions and corporations are both tagged with the “special interest” label—and even some liberals have bought into this.
But let’s look at the reality: Unions represent millions of people; labor leaders are elected. Corporations represent no one in the precise notion of democracy; they are inherently undemocratic institutions whose leaders are not elected by any people other than a handful of board of directors members.
But more important, what is the “special interest” unions represent? Let's mention just a few: a fair wage, decent benefits and a safe workplace (not to mention some respect); a higher minimum wage for tens of millions of workers; a retirement with a secure income, rather than dining on dog food to skimp on money to pay for prescription drugs. If “special,” in the meaning of the dictionary definition, is “unusual, exceptional, unique,” than unions are no special interest at all, because what they do or advocate for touches the lives of the majority, not the exception. It’s time, then, to retire that slur on unions.
The real problem is not that unions pull out all the stops to elect Democrats. It’s that after the election, too often labor has had to remind Democrats how they got elected—and that sometimes labor supports Democratic candidates who don’t deserve labor’s support. If it only it were true that the Democratic Party kowtows to labor. The real challenge is for labor to grow in numbers so it really becomes Big Labor again—and can redouble its efforts to turn out even more members to shift the complexion of the political landscape from one of an ever-growing gap between rich and poor.
July 23, 2004
Conservatives charge that union dues are the mother's milk of the Democratic Party. And so it should be, counters Tasini unapologetically. The real problem, he argues, is that once in power, Democratic politicians forget to advocate for the folks who got them there.
Jonathan Tasini is president of the Economic Future Group and writes his "Working In America" columns for TomPaine.com on an occasional basis.
As is true every four years, a large percentage of delegates at next week’s Democratic Convention will be union members. And every four years, the Republicans and their anti-union machine will start carping about the influence of the labor movement in the election, claiming all sorts of illegalities. So, let’s make it clear: Unions will, and should, pour millions of dollars into the election effort—and nothing about what they do is illegal or even wrong.
The flavor of the diatribes-to-come is captured by a recent book written by Linda Chavez, who had to withdraw as George Bush’s first nominee for secretary of labor when it was discovered she broke the law by not paying social security taxes for a woman she illegally employed in her home. With the understated title, Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics , Chavez tries to paint a picture of some underhanded electoral scheme by, in her oft-repeated words, “Big Labor."
The book itself is mostly filled with name calling and is really a bitter, poorly researched payback for her failed nomination, though Chavez conveniently does not mention that she broke the law. A typical chapter is called “Legalized Terrorism,” but so much of it made me laugh—for example, she calls AFL-CIO President John Sweeney a “Marxist” who preaches labor’s “far-left” agenda. No insult to Sweeney, but if he’s a Marxist, George Bush is a “compassionate” conservative.
What really comes through in the book, (which irks Republicans to no end) is the obvious political reality: Unions have been effective politically in recent electoral cycles. Or at least, it can be said that without unions, the Democrats would be in far worse shape than they are in terms of sheer numbers in Congress. Without labor’s political mobilization, Republicans would perhaps have a filibuster-proof Senate (if you’re a pro-environment or pro-choice voter, you can thank labor for stopping some very bad judges from ascending to the bench) and far more members in the House.
Republican attacks can be boiled down to two basic lines, so let’s address each one here. First, they claim unions are breaking campaign finance laws. Under the law, unions cannot take members’ dues and give it as direct campaign contributions to candidates. However, they can use members’ dues to inform their members about the union’s support for a particular candidate. They can organize phone banks and other outreach methods to persuade members, and they can expend dues to help get their members to the polls.
You will hear Republicans allege all sorts of illegalities: Union phone banks that are supposedly calling non-union voters; secret coordination of dues-funded activities with candidates or the Democratic Party. They are phantoms—if they had evidence, you know they wouldn’t hesitate to lay the case before a sympathetic judge. It’s nonsense.
Second, Republicans claim that union leaders are spending money (overwhelmingly in support of Democrats) in contradiction to union members’ views. It is true that a minority of union members vote Republican. But the emphasis is on the word “minority”—they do not reflect the majority of the sentiment of most, if any, unions. If they did, they would vote out union leaders and elect those who would turn their efforts to convince members to vote Republican. But Republicans have a problem with democracy, whether we are talking about union internal elections or elections in the workplace where workers have the opportunity to choose a union.
I think part of the perception problem has been that the language framing the role of money in politics has thrown unions and corporations together, as if they are both the same problem or have the same motivations. Unions and corporations are both tagged with the “special interest” label—and even some liberals have bought into this.
But let’s look at the reality: Unions represent millions of people; labor leaders are elected. Corporations represent no one in the precise notion of democracy; they are inherently undemocratic institutions whose leaders are not elected by any people other than a handful of board of directors members.
But more important, what is the “special interest” unions represent? Let's mention just a few: a fair wage, decent benefits and a safe workplace (not to mention some respect); a higher minimum wage for tens of millions of workers; a retirement with a secure income, rather than dining on dog food to skimp on money to pay for prescription drugs. If “special,” in the meaning of the dictionary definition, is “unusual, exceptional, unique,” than unions are no special interest at all, because what they do or advocate for touches the lives of the majority, not the exception. It’s time, then, to retire that slur on unions.
The real problem is not that unions pull out all the stops to elect Democrats. It’s that after the election, too often labor has had to remind Democrats how they got elected—and that sometimes labor supports Democratic candidates who don’t deserve labor’s support. If it only it were true that the Democratic Party kowtows to labor. The real challenge is for labor to grow in numbers so it really becomes Big Labor again—and can redouble its efforts to turn out even more members to shift the complexion of the political landscape from one of an ever-growing gap between rich and poor.