Special Report: The 2005 Elections
“Working families rejected the anti-worker, radical right wing agenda of our nation’s current leadership,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
“Elections are won by the people who turn out the vote and we turned out the people to vote,” Martin Ludlow, executive secretary-treasurer, Los Angeles County Federation of Labor
“Labor...remains a powerful force in American politics,” San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 10
UNIONS LEAD THE WAY—Working family voters mobilized through their AFL-CIO unions in California, Virginia and New Jersey to win stunning Election Day victories against what were once considered long odds.
Tens of thousands of union volunteers distributed millions of worksite fliers, made millions of phone calls to other union household voters and knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors to get out the vote that terminated the “Terminator’s” attack on California nurses, teachers, firefighters, police and their unions and elected pro-worker governors in New Jersey and Virginia.
In California, union members took part in massive rallies in Los Angeles and knocked on rural doors in Butte County. Virginia union members from the sprawling Northern Virginia suburbs to Southern Virginia’s coalfields mobilized on weekend precinct walks and nightly phone banks. New Jersey union members’ statewide mobilization—the most aggressive ever—not only elected a working family governor but contributed to that state’s incredible record of electing union members to public office at all levels.
GOLDEN VICTORY IN GOLDEN STATE—When California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) and his corporate allies launched their attack on public workers and their unions, polls initially showed support for his anti-worker propositions. Proposition 75 was the heart of Schwarzenegger’s attack on working families and at one time enjoyed a 55–23 percent edge with voters. The paycheck deception measure sought to silence public employees’ voice in politics by placing massive reporting and administrative burdens on unions before union dues could be used for political expenditures—such as educating members about issues and lobbying for pro-working family legislation.
On Election Day, Schwarzenegger’s cornerstone lost 53 percent to 47 percent.
“Labor’s voice was not silenced—we spoke loud and clear. Today we kicked Arnold’s butt,” said Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation.
It was worker-to-worker contact on the job, the phones and at the door that created the huge turnaround that beat Prop. 75 as well as Prop. 74, a proposal to reduce teachers’ job security and contract protections, and Prop. 76, which would have given the governor power to make devastating mid-year budget cuts. California union members passed out more than 2 million workplace leaflets and made more than 2 million phone calls to mobilize union family voters against the corporate-backed attacks. Union people-power far outweighed the impact of the tens of millions of dollars Schwarzenegger’s Big Business friends raised for the special election. Los Angeles Times reported his campaign against working families was “financed chiefly by business interests, including real estate developers, technology executives, auto dealers, agribusiness and Wal-Mart heirs.”
As Gerald McEntee, AFL-CIO political committee chair and AFSCME president, said, “The terminator took on working families and working families won.”
ELECTING OUR FRIENDS AND OUR OWN—New Jersey working families turned back a smear campaign by the campaign of Douglas Forrester (R) and elected U.S. Sen. Jon Corzine (D), who, in his Senate career, has a 100 percent AFL-CIO voting record on working family issues.
The New Jersey State AFL-CIO continued its leading-edge efforts to elect union members to political office, winning 42 of 60 races where union member candidates were on the ballot, including four state assembly and three state senate seats.
Some 7,000 union volunteers made some 250,000 phone calls to union homes and passed out hundreds of thousand of workplace fliers to mobilize the Garden State’s 1.5 million union household voters. “This was our most aggressive political program ever.” Once again, speaking in a united voice and working for a common goal, the labor movement solidified our movement as the strongest voter base in the state, said New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech. With nearly 400 union members elected at local, county and state levels, “our ability to shape public policy and win support for organizing drives and labor disputes is stronger than ever,” he said.
BUSH DIDN’T HELP—President George W. Bush engineered a last-minute, election-eve visit to Virginia to rally support for Attorney General Jerry Kilgore (R) in his race for the governor’s office against working family-backed Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine (D). In a state that had gone heavily for Bush in the past two presidential elections, that should have helped. But in what political analysts said was a slap in the face to Bush and a strong indicator of the falling popularity of the president and his policies, Kaine won by a 52–46 percent margin. More than 400,000 members of Virginia union households and the 50,000 new members of Working America—the community affiliate of the AFL-CIO—were a deciding factor.
RED TO BLUE—Working America volunteers focused on two Northern Virginia counties that were Republican strongholds in the past gubernatorial election and the 2004 presidential contest and turned them around. Prince William County voted 52–47 percent against 2001 Democratic candidate Mark Warner but 50–48 percent for Kaine. Loudon County’s vote changed from a 53–46 percent Republican lead in 2001 to a 51–46 percent win for Kaine this year.
More than 50,000 Virginians joined Working America in just five months and played a vital role in registering voters and getting out the vote on Election Day. In Northern Virginia alone, Working America volunteers reached some 600 to 800 voters a night in the past two months of the campaign
LISTEN UP—“These elections show that the tide will turn because working people are fed up with the big business special interest agenda and are ready to get involved to turn our country in a different direction. Unions give them a way to make that happen,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
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Work in Progress
See the AFL-CIO Gulf Coast Worker Network Hurricane Relief Update for the latest hurricane relief efforts of the AFL-CIO and affiliate unions and visit http://www.aflcio.org/hurricane.
911 OPERATORS DIAL AFSCME—Some 80 emergency 911 operators in Tulsa, Okla., voted last month to join AFSCME Local 1180. Also, 75 bus drivers for the Portage (Ohio) Area Regional Transit Authority voted for the Ohio Association of Public School Employees/AFSCME Local 4 and 20 cafeteria workers in the Amherst-Pelham (Mass.) Regional Schools chose AFSCME Council 93.
NASHVILLE FILM CREW PICKS IATSE—Thirty film crew workers at Picture Vision Pictures, in Nashville, Tenn., won representation with the Theatrical Stage Employees Local 492 last month. Ironically, the crew is working on a commercial for the virulently anti-union Wal-Mart. Also, 14 wardrobe technicians at the Pittsburgh Public Theater won recognition with Local 787. Both wins came through majority sign-ups, in which the employer agrees to recognize the workers’ choice to join a union when a majority signs union authorization cards.
IFPTE GROWS IN SAN FRANCISCO—Through a combination of political action and member-to-member organizing, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21 in San Francisco has increased its membership by more than 6,000 in recent years and the union’s core staff has grown from one person to more than 20. Local 21 is the latest organizing success story featured on the AFL-CIO’s website, www.aflcio.org/, which highlights successful strategies and techniques that local and international unions use to grow their membership and provide a voice on the job for more workers.
BUDGET CUTS AND TAX BREAKS STYMIED—With thousands of e-mails and phone calls, working family activists told Congress that cutting programs for working families and the poor, while giving even more tax breaks for the rich, was a disgrace. Last week, that mobilization forced Republican leaders to postpone votes on the spending cuts for working families and tax cuts for the rich. House Republican leaders were unable to gather enough votes Nov. 10 to slash more than $50 billion from vital working family programs and were forced to delay a scheduled vote on the budget cuts. A plan by the Bush administration and congressional leaders to give the wealthy $70 billion in tax breaks also was stymied in the Senate Finance Committee, where nine Democrats on the committee joined with Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) to prevent the legislation from going to the full Senate for a vote. House leaders and the Bush administration are expected to continue their deal-making in an attempt to pass the budget cuts. The House is expected to vote on the tax breaks for the wealthy before Thanksgiving, but it’s unclear what action the Senate will take. For more information, visit www.aflcio.org/.
TEACHING A LESSON ABOUT SOLIDARITY—About 1,000 members of the Graduate Student Organizing Committee/UAW Local 2110 at New York University (NYU) walked out Nov. 9 to protest the university’s refusal to bargain a second contract. More than 500 professors have joined the graduate employees’ protest by teaching classes off campus during the strike. The school announced Aug. 5 it no longer would recognize the union and let the contract lapse. In 2004, the Bush administration’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) reversed a Clinton administration ruling and abolished federal labor law protections for graduate employees. To send a message to NYU administrators saying you support the striking graduate employees, go to this link: www.unionvoice.org/campaign/NYU_Action_clone.
FAITH IN A BETTER WAGE—The National Council of Churches (NCC) has launched a new “Let Justice Roll” campaign to increase the $5.15-an-hour federal minimum wage and fight for local living wage ordinances. “We believe it’s a moral outrage that minimum wage employees who work 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, only earn $10,700 a year, which is $5,000 below the federal poverty level,” said NCC General Secretary Rev. Robert Edgar at a Capitol Hill press conference Nov. 7. Last month, Senate Republicans for the second time this year voted against giving the nation’s lowest-paid workers a pay raise, killing a proposal by Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) to boost the minimum wage to $6.25 an hour. Members of Congress have received seven pay raises since the last minimum wage increase in 1997.
ANOTHER LIVING WAGE VICTORY—Minneapolis is the latest city to require a living wage. A city ordinance, approved Nov. 4, strengthens a previous living wage policy the council enacted in 1997 and raises the living wage in Minneapolis from 110 percent to 130 percent of the federal poverty level. The Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council and 20 other organizations that make up the Living Wages Yes! Coalition built strong community support for the ordinance by collecting 7,000 signatures on a petition and lobbying the City Council.
HEALTH CARE ACT SIGNED—In Suffolk County, N.Y., the Long Island Federation of Labor mobilized union members, community and business allies to win passage in September of a Fair Share Health Care Act that prevents large retailers from shifting their health care costs and responsibilities to workers, taxpayers and other businesses. The act, which sets minimum standards for employer contributions to worker health costs, was signed into law Nov. 1. In other health care news, working families are mobilizing for upcoming state legislative sessions across the country to win passage of two pieces of legislation: a version of the Fair Share Health Care Act, which requires large employers to pay their fair share for health care or pay into a state fund; and the Health Care Disclosure Act, which would require states to collect and disclose the names of employers whose workers apply for publicly funded health care programs as well as the cost to state taxpayers. The legislation would expose such corporations as Wal-Mart that force workers to turn to taxpayer-funded health care because their employers pay low wages and provide poor health benefits.
WAL-MART KNEW ABOUT UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS—Corporate officials at Wal-Mart knew contractors hired by the giant retailer to clean its stores were employing undocumented workers, according to an affidavit by a federal investigator and news reports. The October 2003 affidavit, which was unsealed by a federal judge Nov. 2, said a top Wal-Mart official encouraged a contractor to set up several “shell” companies to employ undocumented workers. The affidavit was unsealed at the request of undocumented workers who are suing Wal-Mart over alleged labor law violations. Meanwhile, this week a new documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, will be screened in thousands of locations as part of a nationwide effort by unions and their community allies to show the real Wal-Mart: a corporation that made $10 billion in 2004 while paying workers wages below the poverty level. Produced by Robert Greenwald, the documentary shows the effects of Wal-Mart’s greed through the personal stories of everyday workers and their families. To find locations for the screenings, visit www.walmartmovie.com/theaters.php.
‘HEADS IN SAND ON CHINA’—A new report from the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission said current trends in the U.S.-China relationship, such as record trade deficits and China’s illegal trade practices, point to dangers for our long-term economic and national security, and U.S. policies in these areas need “urgent attention and course corrections.” Yet the Bush administration has its head in the sand when it comes to trade with China, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka said. “Our nation’s leaders must honor America’s workers and communities and read this report, and change our nation’s direction in regard to our policy on China trade,” he said. To read a copy of the report, visit www.uscc.gov/.
FINES CUT IN JIM WALTER MINE DEATHS—Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts blasted the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for being “extremely casual and cavalier in its enforcement” of mine safety rules. Roberts was reacting to an administrative law judge’s decision to reduce significantly MSHA’s fines against Jim Walters Resources in the deaths of 13 miners. The miners died Sept. 23, 2001, after two explosions at Walters’ mine in Brookwood, Ala. The MSHA fined the company $435,000, but on appeal, U.S. Administrative Law Judge David Barbour reduced the fine to $3,000. Roberts says Barbour found MSHA “simply did not do its job when it came to proving its case.”
WORKERS STRIKE DEAL WITH ASARCO—Workers at Asarco Nov. 14 approved an extension of the current collective bargaining contract until the end of next year. Pending the ratification’s approval by a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge, they will return to work and end their four-month-old strike. More than 1,500 workers from eight unions have been on strike seeking a fair deal at six copper mining, smelting and concentrating facilities owned by Asarco in Arizona and Texas. The contract also includes a successor clause that requires any future buyer to honor the deal. This is especially important to workers because Asarco declared bankruptcy in August, despite record copper prices. The workers are represented by the Boilermakers, Electrical Workers, Machinists, Operating Engineers, Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, Steel Workers and the unaffiliated Carpenters and Teamsters.
REMEMBERING ‘PITTSBURGH’S LABOR PRIEST’—Monsignor Charles Owen Rice, known as “Pittsburgh’s Labor Priest” for his decades of activism on behalf of working people, died Nov. 13 in McCandless, Pa. Rice, 96, marched on picket lines and led union protests for seven decades and marched in numerous civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s. He also delivered the invocation at the founding convention of the CIO in 1938.
TO THE WHITE HOUSE ON D-10—Thousands of federal workers and their supporters will march to the White House Dec. 8 to let President George W. Bush know they strongly oppose new federal personnel rules that strip workers of their collective bargaining rights. The new National Security Personnel System would allow U.S. Department of Defense officials to override provisions in collective bargaining contracts for 650,000 civilian Defense employees. The protest is part of a week of actions around the world to shine a light on employers’ efforts to thwart workers’ freedom to form unions and the failure of current government leaders to protect this basic right. Throughout the week of Dec. 5–10, workers around the globe will hold rallies, town hall meetings, candlelight vigils and teach-ins to expose the obstacles workers face when seeking to join a union at work and showcase strategies for overcoming those barriers. The events are part of a massive global mobilization to mark Dec. 10, International Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the 1948 ratification of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes workers’ freedom to form unions. To get involved, visit www.aflcio.org/d10.
