Unions Say Don't Blame Us For Bush Victory

by David Bacon

(IPS) OAKLAND -- There is no question that organized labor pulled out all the stops to defeat George W. Bush.

Over 2,000 members of the country's largest union, the Service Employees (SEIU), left their jobs to campaign in battleground states, and the union budgeted $65 million for the campaign. The AFL-CIO (American Federation of Labor/Congress of Industrial Organizations, the federation of U.S. labor unions) itself fielded 5,000 fulltime employees and 225,000 volunteers.

Those efforts made Bush's victory a hard one to swallow. For many of the most progressive leaders of U.S. labor, however, it was more than just bitter -- it is threatening. "We have no alternative now but to resist at every level," said Stuart Acuff, organizing director of the AFL-CIO, which represents more than 13 million workers, a sharp drop over the past few decades

"And one of the things we have to anticipate is the repression of political enemies. We're all going to have to stand up for each other," he added in an interview.

Dolores Huerta, legendary co-founder of the United Farm Workers, was even more blunt. "We might as well start organizing now, if we don't want to run for cover after this one," she warned.

Unions were motivated by the same track record that now concerns them. The first Bush administration compiled a four-year history of orders prohibiting unions in government departments, federal injunctions during lockouts and strikes, rollbacks of overtime and worker protection legislation and job losses greater than any administration since Herbert Hoover (1929-1933).

In many ways, union members heeded the call to battle the Republican Party's Bush. SEIU Executive Vice-President Eliseo Medina called the mobilization unprecedented, adding that despite the president's victory Nov. 2, "thousands and thousands of members participated in this effort."

That, he added in an interview, gives labor a base with which to resist the attacks it now expects from a second Bush administration. "We've got our work cut out for us," Medina cautioned. "We still have a battle for health insurance, for decent wages and for immigrant worker rights.

"If we're going to succeed, not just in making positive changes but in making sure things don't get worse, we're going to need an engaged membership and engaged communities. If we don't speak up, nobody else is going to."

As is the case in every national election, unions contributed votes to the Democratic side of the ticket, led by Senator John Kerry, in larger proportions than their share of the population.

Union members make up 13 percent of the U.S. workforce, but their households represent 24 percent of the electorate, or about 27 million votes.

A Peter Hart poll gave Kerry a 65-33 percent lead among those voters. In the battleground states, where unions put most of their resources, the poll gave Kerry a slightly greater, 68-31 percent, edge. A CNN poll was similar -- 60-39 percent for the senator.

While Kerry won a majority among voters of color, he lost among white voters -- except union members. He lost white men by an 18 percent difference, but won white male unionists by 21 percent, and lost white women by four percent while carrying white union women by 35 percent.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney told a post-election news conference that in the future, "we have to do more." But Huerta felt it was the Kerry campaign that could have done more, especially in combating the use of abortion and gay marriage as "scare" issues by the Republican Party.

"There were little papers printed in Spanish and English distributed throughout the Latino community, saying a vote for Kerry was a sin," she explained. "We only got 54 percent of the women's vote, which was down from 62 percent. That means we lost a lot among women."

"You need organizers on the ground," Huerta added. "People get so confused by television, and never hear the truth. Unless you have someone who hand carries the message, we're going to lose every time."

Acuff saw the same problem campaigning in Wisconsin. "In the upper Midwest (states), there was an alignment for many years between workers, union members and Catholics. That alignment has been broken. We saw a lot of confused and conflicted working people in Wisconsin in this election, particularly over the issue of abortion."

Huerta and Acuff point to an important division, not just in the electorate in general but among union members.

Only 16 percent of union voters listed "moral values" as their prime interest, but Bush won 59 percent of their votes. Unions concentrated their attack on the economy, which 42 percent of union voters listed as their main concern. Kerry took 71 percent of those votes.

But while the war in Iraq made constant headlines, and was the main feature of presidential debates, the official AFL-CIO campaign said little about it. Some unions, like SEIU, used their own set of campaign points that condemned the war.

This split in labor was visible even during the primaries, when public sector unions in particular supported Howard Dean, who was eventually defeated by Kerry, because of his anti-war stance.

"It's wrong to think that speaking out on the war is the kiss of death in November," Medina warned at the time. "It's draining resources needed at home, leaving a huge deficit leading to the loss of jobs, while kids of working families are being sent to fight and die."

Since last summer, labor opposition to the U.S.-led war has grown. Art Pulaski, executive secretary of the California Labor Federation (the AFL-CIO's largest state body), declared after Kerry's loss: "opposition to the war is going to swell in labor. It's going to be part of our opposition to everything the administration does," he told IPS.

Acuff called the war "not only unnecessary but unjust. Waving the bloody shirt may work, but it doesn't mean it's right. It's certainly not about combating terrorism or keeping this country safe. It's about Bush's political agenda."

While many labor activists foresee a long series of defensive battles throughout a second Bush term, some still see the opportunity to advance toward labor goals, health care in particular.

In California, the effort by unions and health care advocates to pass Proposition 72, which would have required large employers to provide health insurance for their workers, failed narrowly. "This is just another example of how far large corporations will go to avoid responsibility to their employees and the public," Pulaski fumed.

"As a result, all of us will pay more for our health care. Many will lose their insurance, and taxpayers will subsidise Wal-Mart and McDonald's. This issue is not going away."

Acuff warned that new campaigns of resistance and civil disobedience might be in the works. Unions, he argued, have to go beyond just talking about bread and butter issues, adding the key problem for labor is "the vision thing" -- unions need to present an alternative to the moral and social values trumpeted by the religious right.

"We need to define an agenda that has the potential to change peoples' lives," said Acuff, "that's more than just tinkering around the edges. We don't need to retreat on an agenda of fundamental change, including immigration, healthcare and the right to organize. That would be a huge mistake."

"But we need to talk about our values, that provide the foundation for that agenda -- greater liberation for human beings, greater freedom, greater opportunity, more justice in the country and in the world."