Organized labor has agenda for Democrats
By Will Lester
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Unions spent more than $100 million getting out the vote, knocked on millions of doors and delivered Election Day support to Democrats running for the House by a more than 2-to-1 margin.
Now organized labor is spelling out what it wants from the new Democratic Congress.
The priorities include raising the minimum wage, expanding healthcare and improving pension protections.
Union workers voted Democratic in the House races, 67 percent to 30 percent. And others in union households voted almost as strongly Democratic, according to exit polls conducted for The Associated Press and the networks.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney sees the elections as a "mandate for a union agenda."
Likewise, says Bill Samuel, legislative director for the AFL-CIO, "we have an opportunity to push our agenda for working families."
Organized labor will press for an increase in the minimum wage — the most likely item to be passed because President Bush may go along with it if certain benefits are included for small businesses.
Labor also:
The unions also will push for improved mining safety laws, increased retirement protections and expanded healthcare.
"One of the best ways we can address stagnating wages and lost pensions and healthcare is to restore the bargaining power of workers," Samuel said.
The most effective way to restore that bargaining power, he said, is passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow formation of a union once there is majority support and increase penalties for management violations of efforts to organize. Current procedures that call for an election can be drawn out by managers to allow time to campaign aggressively against formation of a union, he said.
The AFL-CIO executive council meets today to discuss various issues, including the legislative agenda.
The aggressive stance is a sharp turnaround from the past few years.
"There were days during the last six years when we were in a defensive crouch protecting 60 years of workplace advances," Samuel said.
Organized labor clearly expects the Democratic Congress to help pass pro-worker legislation after an unprecedented get-out-the-vote effort.
Organized labor spent an unprecedented amount of money for midterm elections on its get-out-the-vote-effort — $40 million by the AFL-CIO alone — with 187,000 union volunteers in the AFL-CIO program knocking on more than 3 million doors in the final four days. Labor did more microtargeting of voters, but the most effective technique was still worker-to-worker contact.
After a union split in 2005 that some projected would cripple the labor movement, the seven breakaway unions in the Change to Win federation also put together an ambitious election program, some of it coordinated with the AFL-CIO. The aggressive political effort comes at a time when organized labor has been shrinking.
When the AFL-CIO merged in the 1950s, one of every three private-sector workers belonged to a labor union. Now, only about 8 percent of private-sector workers are unionized.
"Activists from Change to Win welcome their new leadership, but with an expectation," said Anna Burger, chairwoman of Change to Win. "These new leaders must do their part to restore the American dream — a paycheck that supports a family, affordable healthcare, a secure retirement and most of all, a better life for our kids."
Almost half of union members said they voted to show their opposition to Bush. About three-fourths of union members opposed the Iraq war and they voted overwhelmingly for Democrats.
While much of the electorate shifted toward the Democrats, union voters clearly made a difference in many close races. And Democratic lawmakers acknowledge that pro-worker legislation will be a priority.
"American workers have been losing ground over the last several years despite the nation's economic growth, and we are eager to change that by promoting economic policies that benefit everyone," said Rep. George Miller, the California Democrat likely to be chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
