Senate HCR and the Continuing Support of Labor Unions

(11 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

Cross-posted at Progressive Blue.

It’s the same old story. Another slap in the face to both organized labor and the entire middle class as both Craig Becker and the National Labor Relations Board are in limbo. Harry Reid called for recess appointments, The AFL-CIO sprang into action and the president’s response is limbo continued. There is nothing this Democratic president can do for such close allies? As workers are wondering if a functioning NLRB is being saved for October of 2012 this all seems so 1994. But top that off with Obama’s lust for the HCR excise tax and it gets so much worse.

In the debate over the finance of health insurance expansion it would be worth noting that the wealthy who voted for Barack Obama and supported the Democratic party fully expected that healthcare reform would be financed by a roll back the Bush tax cuts for Americans earning more than $250,000 per year. The union members who voted for, stuffed envelopes, reached into their pockets an organized fundraisers, were under the impression that they would see some much needed advancement from a Democratic president after eight years of Bush.

By now most progressive bloggers have moved way beyond these workers who have been losing ground since the 1970’s. It has been rationalized to death so everyone could move on to the next action, followed by the next capitulation, followed by the next wild goose chase towards progress. Come November blue collar workers, like Massachusetts voters recently, might end up being framed as stupid for protecting themselves from harm.

Distrust for government seems to work for Republicans, not for Democrats. As the public option is being presented once again, probably another carrot on a string, a deeper look at this excise tax that will live in the memories of workers for many years is in order. How much trust will be left between the workers and Democratic leadership once this excise tax becomes law and in years to come?

Having been a union worker in union shops for thirty-eight years, several times a shop steward and active within union political action committees, I consider myself an expert on worker sentiment. The relationship between organized labor and Democratic leadership has never been so strained as it is now. I know this because after all of my years of supporting Democrats, 2010 began for me by devoting my time to motivating organized labor against the Democratic leadership. At this point I don’t think there is a single union member out there that does not fully understand the repercussions of having worked to get a Democratic president elected.

My first day in a union shop almost feels like yesterday. At the time I was actively involved in getting George McGovern elected president. An old timer came up to me and asked me about all the buttons on my coat. After I explained he told me “I was once an active Democrat but Harry Truman was the last Democrat.” Then he explained Taft-Hartley a little better to me than my high school history book. He called it the “slave labor bill” and told me that it took plenty of Democrats in Congress to override the veto of Harry S. Truman.

A lot of years have passed since my first day as a Union worker. Tons of money from organized labor to elected officials with an endless slew of near misses, apologies after the fact and Democrats that meant well but just couldn’t get it done. The days of Democratic leadership banking on an historic relationship with unions have been coming to a close because of a long string of broken promises. Decades of being played for fools by people who bring nothing to the table and generations since the alliance with FDR have left workers out in the cold. So when Barack Obama presents these workers as “Driving Cadillacs” many workers ask “Is he really a Democratic president?”

I’m actually a Democrat longer that I’ve been involved in organized labor but I remained an active Democrat not because of any results from elected Democrats. I gave to and volunteered for Democratic leadership because of Union leadership. Now the rank and file does not harbor fantasies about abstracts like “newer better Democrats” in a game where nothing changes. We do not support Democrats because they have anything to offer but because the alternative is so horrifying. After all these years of Democratic support nothing could be more obvious now than the fact that we could not have done any worse without the help of Democratic leadership. Now we have another case where it is obvious that we would have done much better without them. Our union leaders, elected by comfortable delegates, keep telling us that Democrats are still the way to go but the workers have been here before and actions speak louder than empty words.

I’ve watched workers turn against the pleadings of Union leaders in the past and have seen their enthusiasm shot to hell by the actions of Democratic leaders over and over. Just like many times in the past, union leaders getting in the news have far different opinions from struggling workers and the families of those workers. The media may have painted the negotiations with union workers as a big Democratic sellout and while Richard Trumka pretends to be satisfied with the deal that was struck, just about every worker will tell you “Barack Obama putting off taking food off my table until 2018 is still Barack Obama taking food out of my children’s mouth.”

Many Democratic supporters think the unions don’t matter anymore.  Organized labor has gone from 32 percent of the private sector workforce back in the 1950’s to 7.2 percent in 2009. While the rank and file enrollment in unions has steadily decreased as the result of unregulated hostile management and a government that falls some where between hostility and indifference, we still make up a healthy number of voters in blue states and some purple states. Unions still have strength in civil service.

37.4 percent of public employees are now represented by unions. Today, there are more public employees in unions (7.9 million) than private-sector ones (7.4 million).

This excise tax is an assault on state payrolls by the federal government. Taxing the civil service worker does reduce spending since states must operate in the black and it will also curtail state regulations on insurance companies too. State workers are in the same squeeze play as union workers in private industry. Every negotiation they get the shaft with both payroll not keeping pace and giving back more and more of the medical coverage. The media presenting struggling teachers, cops and firefighters as the problem as state workers see their medical coverage already being rationed.

When the rank and file activated for Barack Obama, a candidate that claimed he would seek to repeal Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and use the money to pay for health care reform, that was a time for “Hope.” After a year of watching how the bully pulpit was used to transform health care reform into health insurance expansion and American citizen reform it was not looking so good for working Americans anymore.

Much has changed since the election. The biggest selling point, a public option was the first to get kicked to the side. The promise of “no mandates” was next and also became a new tax on working Americans. The promise of no back room deals with special interest groups went down in flames along with drug price controls. Then the time came for total worker despair, the president’s plan to finance health insurance expansion.

“I’m on record as saying that taxing Cadillac plans that don’t make people healthier, but just take more money out of their pockets because they’re paying more for insurance than they need to, that’s actually a good idea and that helps bend the cost curve; that helps to reduce the cost of health care over the long term. I think that’s a smart thing to do.”

That “smart thing to do” can be framed many different ways. In order to frame it as not being a tax increase for the middle class, you would need to rationalize that this “Cadillac Tax” is only an increase for “the elite members of the middle class.” Yes now that we have “our President” and “our Congress” the core of the Democratic base seems to have been divided between the the “haves” and the “have nots.”

There are all sorts of fractures and disagreements between loyal Democrats because of the utter frustration caused by a bill created for a health care market, the marketplace of death. Strong feelings between strongly divided constituents are never good for Party prospects but feelings aren’t facts. It is true that most Democratic supporters do not give to Democrats for the advance of organized labor but the facts are undeniable here. Even if it is framed as subsidies for the workers it is undeniable that the biggest losers are many working class families across America.

Many people on the left that claimed that a modified version of what what John McCain was saying on the campaign trail, that organized labor have been getting away with not paying their fair share, may think they have a point. Claims like “an insane tax preference for not only employer-purchased health-care insurance, but more employer-purchased health-care insurance” are already changing the definition of “Limousine Liberal” in the eyes of union members. Workers who are self employed or don’t have an employer that provides healthcare should be aware that the situation is less unions getting over and that they themselves are getting screwed because they do not have an advocate.

Bad feelings about workers that have been giving up pay increases for medical security for decades like “It’s much less a tax than it is the end of a tax subsidy” make some sense, until you take a closer look.  An Alternative Minimum Tax was seemingly designed in the 1970’s to protect Americans from rich people creating tax shelters but conveniently never adjusted for inflation so that now, if you’ve reached the upper middle class, the AMT serves as a cap on the medical expenses you can deduct. The medical expense tax adjustment on the lower end that once offered assistance in paying medical bills has also been adjusted upward. With a Congress only interested in protecting this free market of death the ever increasing cost to consumers of for-profit health care was taking a toll on taxes collected so now the first 7.5% in medical expenses is no longer deductible for the unprotected consumer.

Notice the fact that unions used advocates and played the inside beltway game to get there. Unions are not the only reason no taxes are charged on payroll healthcare but we did what had to be done for survival in a nation where money talks. Organized labor worked very hard for what we have and have shown much grassroots support for a Party unwilling to support organizing campaigns, unwilling to fight for labor law reform and unwilling to fight for manufacturing jobs. We pooled our money, became a special interest group and have been sending our own representatives to pay into the Washington style protection racket for self preservation. For union workers this represents a battle lost not to the GOP War With Big Labor, this is a loss created by the Party and the President that we came out and supported.

So how will having our wages reduced by a Democratic majority and a Democratic president effect the future for Democrats? There have already been schisms in unions over Democratic support. The largest split in the ranks, back in July of 2005 when two of the nation’s largest unions broke away from the AFL-CIO was greatly about membership spending their money on organizing new workers for strength instead of the repeated mistake of throwing good money after bad and spending it on Democrats. It is a very good defense against hostile Republicans and Democrats that only show an interest prior to elections. Organizing new workers in new industries is the best defense because nobody can talk union workers into believing that unions are bad for workers. Now the president of the union that has changed the focus to creating new union workers Andy Stern is often invited to the White House but the workers still feel locked out.  

Union workers are aware and recall when Harry Reid promised that if the Democrats took back the majority in 2006 then the Bush Blue State tax would be repealed and workers would be able to go back to deducting state sales tax. Workers in Blue states are still paying federal taxes on state taxes and feeling duped by Democrats. We all remember so many Democrats promising the Employes Free Choice Act if the Democrats took everything in 2008 but we are still waiting and in 2010 this watered down version sounds so much more like an empty pander. When you’ve seen enough campaign seasons with Democrats suddenly interested in job actions followed by indifference, it makes cynics out of supporters.  

Since it was the last midterm election for a new Democratic president, 1994 offers a decent guide. In 1994 union households were a record low 14 percent of the electorate and the Republicans took control of Congress. With 38.8 percent of the voting age population voting turnout was fairly high, perhaps because of The Contract with America but obviously Republican voters were the ones who turned out.

There are so many reasons given for the low voter turnout of the rank and file union members and their families in 1994. One reason that would be false would be blaming union leadership and political actions committees but reciprocity did come into play to some extent. Union leadership operates much like the progressive blogs, losing the battle is no reason to give up support for the Democratic Party because where else can we go? The GOTV drives that are largely responsible for the percentage of union member participation being higher than the general population was still there.

But the workers are human and create expectations because those expectations were planted by Democrats seeking office. Perhaps union members were not as enthusiastic about supporting the lesser of two evils because of what they were seeing and hearing beyond their union leaders. It could be that they stayed home after coming out in support of a Democratic presidential candidate expecting labor friendly healthcare reform and instead got the North American Free Trade Agreement. A good deal of union members took the attitude that both Parities are the same and felt they had better things to do than vote. It was at their own peril but there was a level of disgust and a growing level of distrust.

What happened in 2000? If you open the abstract of The Continuing Influence of Organized Labor in American Elections, you will get many answers. Here’s a question. If the union rank and file had not been so decimated in the 1990’s would Al Gore have become the 43rd President of the United States?  

Consider the part that union workers played in the election of George W. Bush. In 2000 unions turned out a great deal of our resources in support of the Democratic Party. No blame could be placed on the lackluster efforts of AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland to support the Democratic Party back in 1994. There was a big shake up in union politics after that election and 1995 was the year of John Sweeney. Mr. Sweeney (born in the Bronx!) promised and delivered a more active political presence for unions.

From its low point in 1994 with the Gingrich-engineered Republican triumph, organized labor has revived its political operations by mobilizing members and their families through direct educational work about candidates and public policy, especially economic issues linked to work. It has refined its organizational capacity to register members, inform them (most effectively at the workplace) and get them to vote for union-backed candidates.

Mr. Sweeney’s “new voice” was a vast improvement and the turnout for 2000 was very strong from what was left of unions but his promise of strong unions that could not be ignored or taken for granted by Democratic nor Republican politicians has yet to come true. By 2000 the percentage of Americans who did not have health insurance exceeded Americans who had a union card in their pocket.

Disgusted with a management loving Party that had done little to advance the needs of workers, many voted for Gore but were far too beaten down to do anything more than vote. For the workers NAFTA was more than just the perceived threat it was in 1994. Many union members like myself, always involved on the grassroots level were not so anxious to get involved after Bill Clinton’s perceived inability to turn around the NLRB and OSHA and failure to pass legislation banning the permanent replacement of strikers.

There was also a growing segment of union workers too busy to follow much more that the tabloids on the way to work and some news channels in the evening. Angry people where FOX News was beginning to influence their political beliefs. Workers who just wanted to see incumbents lose. They did not want to listen their union leaders and totally fed up with the New Democrat actually voted for Bush. I know this because I worked very hard to change many workers minds. Reminding workers of the air traffic controllers and the fact that the NLRB and OSHA were ruined by Bush’s father but the frustration was very real.

Then after 2000 and workers were reminded of just how bad Republicans really are union members began feeling the love again for Democrats on C-SPAN promising what they will do someday. Just like healthcare the excuse that nothing can be done with Bush in office sounded plausible. That seems to be the only time that Democratic leadership sounds good to workers, when Republicans are in charge.

Ten years have passed with union workers working to get the Democrats back in charge and two since that work has “paid off.” Some blind faith Democrats may claim that workers are being stupid for not showing the enthusiasm this November. Perhaps the Democrats who we supported are the stupid ones but they really don’t need to care do they? The Democrats who are retired in November will all see big pay raises as the next republican cycle begins.    

But probably the most important point to make here is that the damage will not just be about 2010 or 2012. Even if the bill fails or the finance of health insurance company expansion is fixed and the money is taken from where candidate Obama said it would come from, the damage is already done. We get it, we clearly understand that we wasted out time supporting Democrats. If it does pass than just like that old timer that explained Taft-Hartley to me, this will be passed down from older to younger workers for many years to come, presented as the rewards received for working to get Democrats elected. When that money starts hurting non-union employees with employer based health care, they will get it too.