|
In November, Democrats won control of both houses of Congress
for the first time in 12 years. As always, big business contributed the
most money but labor did their legwork. Hundreds of thousands of union
volunteers from the AFL-CIO and Change to Win made millions of calls and
distributed tens of millions of flyers.
Motivating workers' votes, say unions, was not
primarily last-minute corruption scandals, but the war in Iraq, the
economy, health care, Social Security, and pensions. Now union leaders
are talking about what they expect in return. Yet those expectations
amount to pretty small change—and even that may not be forthcoming.
Union heads and Democratic leaders talk of raising the
minimum wage and allowing Medicare to seek drug discounts. Unions will
also push for the Employee Free Choice Act, or card check, which requires
employers to recognize a union when a majority of workers sign cards, to
avoid NLRB delays and harassment and firing of union supporters.
Also on labor's agenda is "fair trade"; changing
bankruptcy laws used to abandon pension and health care commitments;
improved safety laws and enforcement; and eliminating tax and other
policies that make it easy to send jobs overseas.
Standing in the way of all these goals are not just
filibusters and vetoes, but Democrats' pledges of
"bipartisanship"—and labor leaders' proven willingness to
accept Democratic excuses for failing to deliver.
The minimum wage hike may be the easiest to achieve.
It's been at $5.15 since 1997 and buys less today than 50 years ago. Even
such notorious exploiters as Wal-Mart and Starbucks pay on average two or
three bucks more (their biggest profits come from using part-time,
no-benefit workers).
And Democrats only talk of raising it to $7.25. Labor
officials know this won't reverse the income and benefit losses of recent
decades.
Referring to the need to win card check, AFL-CIO
legislative director Bill Samuel said, "One of the best ways we can
address stagnating wages and lost pensions and health care is to restore
the bargaining power of workers." But even a weak minimum wage hike
is no sure thing if workers aren't mobilized. And the Democrats are sure
to abandon card check without an even more massive mobilization. (Expect
instead tinkering with NLRB rules.)
By the same token, we can expect Democrats, unwilling
to take on Big Pharma, to backtrack quickly on drug price promises
(neither labor federation is saying much about universal health
coverage).
The shared conservatism of Democrats and labor leaders
is also seen on trade issues. Mainstream media report Democrats are
divided between "newcomers skeptical about trade" and
"those worried about alienating business." Says one academic,
"The [Democratic] leadership doesn't want to be painted as
obstructionist on trade."
Of course, NAFTA was pushed through by labor's
"friend" Bill Clinton, and the Democrats' loss of Congress in
1994 is often blamed on their support for it. More recently 15 Democrats
provided the margin of victory for NAFTA's offspring, CAFTA. So the
"fair trade" rhetoric in this year's elections must be taken
with a huge grain of salt.
But even the "fair trade" demanded by union
leaders sounds more like protectionism than solidarity. Saving jobs on
both sides of the border requires support for each other's struggles—like
the one going on right now in Oaxaca, Mexico, a region hit hard by NAFTA,
or the fight against layoffs in auto in the U.S.—not bans on
"unfair" trade.
On immigration, Democrats don't even make promises.
The Washington Post reports that despite the defeat of some of the most
anti-immigrant Republicans, "Democratic leaders surprised
pro-immigration groups by not including the issue on their list of
priorities," claiming the "explosive" issue "could
give control of Congress back to Republicans. And a number of Democrats
who took a hard line on illegal immigration were also elected."
This shouldn't surprise those who remember Democratic
support for anti-immigrant "compromise" bills last spring. But
that's OK with Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza, who
encourages Democrats to back "a plan that satisfies both
sides."
Also encouraging "unity" is Nativo Lopez of
the Mexican-American Political Association:
"I've been making reconciliation calls. It's
extremely important that we come back together."
And the reactionary "No Child Left Behind"
Act is likely to be renewed in 2007 thanks to Democrats, especially key
committee chairs Ted Kennedy and George Miller, who helped craft this
heinous law in the first place. Summing up the Democratic approach, Matt
Bai wrote in The New York Times that they "avoided offering new
ideas, fearing that bold proposals on health care or retirement
security" would take the focus off Republican failures.
This was OK with union leaders, of whom political
scientist Larry Sabato said: "They're not pushing the Democrats to
the left. They want to win," and so they were happy to back moderate
and conservative Democrats.
Says the Associated Press, "lobbyists do not expect
the partisanship of recent campaigns to last ... pragmatism and the
presidential election will pull both parties to the center," and a
spokesperson for the National Association of Manufacturers predicts new
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will "reach out to nontraditional
allies" to preserve the new majority.
Says The New York Times: "Those who delivered the
new Democratic majorities by winning Republican seats show little
appetite for ideological crusade. Democratic strategists recognize the
new majority was elected in large part from Republican-leaning districts
and states."
Other social movements, says the Los Angeles Times,
are also expecting payback, and getting the same standoffish response.
Party leaders fear abortion rights, antiwar, and civil liberties issues
"could alienate moderate voters and leave Democrats vulnerable to
GOP attacks as big spenders or soft on terrorism." (The paper
ignores progressive referendum results on these issues in several
states.)
The L.A. Times notes that both Pelosi and new Senate
leader Harry Reid "pledged in recent days to 'govern from the
center'" after a campaign in which the party attracted
"unusually conservative candidates."
And
"pragmatist" Senator Chuck Schumer, who helped design
the party's campaign strategy, plans to lay out a plan for long-term
Democratic dominance by junking New Deal concepts and pushing aside
"special interests."
Business Week wrote that "just as unions have
been burned before by political friends—think Bill Clinton's push for
NAFTA—it's unclear what kind of dividend they can expect" from the
new Congress. They add: "How beholden will Democrats be to labor's
agenda if union members back them no matter what? Not very.
“'Unions have had to reassess the benefits of even
successful political action,' says Cletus Daniel, a Cornell professor. 'A lot of people
they've helped elect are not staunch advocates of workers' rights or
willing to take risks on their behalf.'"
Soon union officials will be pleading with members not
to be too hard on friendly Democrats battling newly elected
"moderates." "Wait for the 2008 presidential
elections" will become the new mantra.
Despite labor support, the main money and ideas behind
the Democrats have always come from the bosses. This was proven again in 2006.
Newsweek reported that in the final weeks of the
campaign Democrats had more cash than Republicans, and that contrary to
party claims, this didn't come from the grassroots:
"Business interests have been hedging their bets,
making friends with Democrats just in case." The magazine cited
increased donations by banks and securities brokers.
After the election the AFL-CIO said, "Many issues
backed by Democrats this year were bread and butter basics—maybe not the
sweeping programs that defined Great Society and New Deal Democrats, but
certainly not issues that would have been supported by conservative
Dems."
But even those "sweeping" programs were pale
reflections of more radical demands put forward by labor in militant
periods for decent livelihoods for all at the bosses' expense.
In his article "The Midterm Elections: A Return
to Politics as Usual," National Labor Party Organizer Mark Dudzic
wrote: "The hopes of activists who made this election victory
possible will be betrayed before the cherry blossoms bloom. ... the new
Congress will do nothing to confront the growing concentration of
corporate power.…
“The Democratic Party remains dominated by corporate
interests. Working people will remain stuck in the political wilderness
... until we build a party of our own.”
One promising move in this direction was the Sept. 23
founding convention of the South Carolina Labor Party, which said it
"will be active before, during and between elections, building
solidarity in our communities and workplaces."
That connection between election work and everyday
struggle is key to reviving the kind of mass movements that have produced
strong labor movements with independent politics and genuinely
radical—and inspiring—programs.
|
