Organized Labor and Politics

An excellent op-ed from the son of our own Irwin Nack:

Organized Labor Needs To Define Its Principles
The Capital Times [Madison, Wisconsin]:: EDITORIAL :: 9A
Monday, November 15, 2004
David Nack
In the wake of the election of 2004, American organized labor must reassess its most recent political activities and position.

A mighty consensus gripped almost all major labor organizations that the first priority in 2004 was to unseat President George W. Bush, and labor set its shoulder to the wheel. While union efforts were crucial factors contributing to Democratic victories in many states, obviously both John Kerry and labor came up short in the end.

Kerry campaigned hard, arguably won all three debates and seemed indefatigable right up until the end. From a labor perspective, however, he was hardly an ideal candidate. He had the right positions on overtime provisions for workers, on protecting Social Security from privatization, on worker rights to organize and engage in collective bargaining, and on health and safety standards on the job.

On two other issues, however, that are of the highest priority for organized labor, Kerry was either overly cautious or on the wrong side.

Kerry's proposals to deal with the rapidly accelerating health care crisis that is engulfing America, and haunting virtually all collective bargaining today, while a step in the right direction, were anemic and unimaginative. Looking at Bill Clinton's much bolder proposals in 1992, which helped Clinton win that year's election but erupted later into a political fiasco, surely caused Kerry to go slow in this area.

Even worse from labor's standpoint was Kerry's posture in regard to American workers and the global economy. As blue collar, white collar and now even professional work gets outsourced around the world by means of digital and satellite technology, American workers are left wondering whose job will be lost next. The Bush administration openly defends corporate outsourcing. Kerry, as a supporter of the World Trade Organization, North American Free Trade Agreement and free trade generally, also placed himself in direct opposition to organized labor on this fundamental issue.

Organized labor believes in fair trade, but not the free trade that enables corporate capital to abandon productive jobs and investments in the United States in favor of nations and regions that offer the cheapest sources of labor in the world today. To assuage this deep concern about the corporate outsourcing agenda, Kerry offered only a tax policy that would reduce taxes on American firms that stayed in the U.S. and tax corporations on their foreign investments.

One thing is sure: Kerry did not represent the interests of organized labor or American workers on this critical issue, and nowhere could that be seen better than in the popular vote, which Kerry lost, and in the election returns from Ohio. This industrial state has shed more than a quarter million jobs under Bush. Yet Ohio gave its electoral votes and the presidential election to Bush, primarily because Kerry did not make the case that he had anything meaningful to offer to the beleaguered workers of the Buckeye State.

When working people see little difference between candidates on an issue that strikes so close to home, some become susceptible to other appeals. There is really no way to logically persuade folks who get wrapped up in the guns, God and gays arguments that they are wrong, or overly fearful. The Bush campaign clearly recognized that fear could be used to motivate people, and neither Kerry nor organized labor was in a position to get past that fear by pointing to positive and substantive proposed reforms that are needed in today's corporate global economy to safeguard American livelihoods. In this Kerry was, unfortunately, true to his free trade principles, but organized labor put aside its principles to render him maximum support. It didn't work, and therein may lie important lessons for American organized labor.

It may well be that no Democratic candidates can win a national election again until they explain in detail how they intend to protect American workers and their jobs from corporate outsourcing. Organized labor needs to insist that its position on global trade be adopted before support is given to any candidate. The alternative for labor is to continue to lose elections. Labor itself has contributed to this problem by failing to lay the necessary foundation. American labor may be for fair trade, but what exactly does that mean, and how would it come into being? Where are labor's specific global trade proposals and the massive educational work that is needed to disseminate and explain those proposals?

Labor must learn from the election of 2004 that it needs to develop its own concrete political programs and that supporting candidates opposed to those programs generally will not work. It is better to establish clear-cut principles, and fight for them, than simply to accept the best we can get.

David Nack is an assistant professor at the UW-Extension School for Workers.