------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Nov. 21, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
AS BUSH SAVORS ELECTION VICTORY: ANTI-WAR LABOR MOVEMENT GROWS By Milt Neidenberg Hardly any attention has been paid in the media to the labor movement's role in the Nov. 5 elections and how labor will be affected in their aftermath. The AFL-CIO, except for a few defections to Republican candidates, went all out to defeat the Bush administration. It failed. Much can be learned from defeats; maybe these leaders will do some heavy soul searching in the stormy period ahead. One fact stands out. The AFL-CIO's support for the Democratic Party and its liberal wing cost dearly. Republican and Democratic campaigns alike buried the issue uppermost in workers' minds: the economic crisis. Waging war against Iraq along with homeland security and the so-called war on terrorism overwhelmed the electorate. The AFL-CIO's top leaders got entangled in the capitalist web. Millions of the multinational work force--people of color, women, youths and seniors, unemployed, lesbian, gay, bi and trans workers, the poor--stood on the sidelines as the Democrats succumbed to the blitz by Bush and his billionaire supporters. Only 39 percent of eligible voters pulled the levers in this lackluster election. The workers expected a vigorous campaign to take on the greedy, profit-driven moguls. It didn't happen. AFL-CIO National Political Director Steve Rosenthal, who directed labor's election strategy, ignored all these critical factors in explaining labor's setback. He offered a tepid criticism of the Democrats: "Overall, a lot of the building blocks you need to put together Democratic victories just weren't there in a lot of states. ... Republicans gave their voters a reason to go out and vote and the Democrats did not." Nevertheless, the AFL-CIO leadership tried to overcome the fruitless, do-nothing Democratic campaign. Led by AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, they put on a massive push using union power, money and other resources to get out the membership to support the very same Democrats who had failed their constituencies--labor, African Americans, Latinos, women and the rest of the workers. They contacted each of the 13.5 million members at least four times. They deployed 750 full-time political organizers across the country, handed out 20 million leaflets and arranged transportation to the polls for tens of thousands of workers. In Las Vegas alone, they tracked over 10,000 union households a day with high-tech PalmPilots and then downloaded the data every night into a central computer. They followed this up with an army of door knockers to get out the vote to elect "labor-friendly" Democratic candidates. A password-protected web site made this campaign available to many other cities. In late May, the AFL-CIO General Executive Board levied an increase of four cents, making a total of 10 cents, on each member of the 66 affiliates to build up the organizing and electoral funds. How many millions of dollars were spent has not been announced, but the labor movement was totally outspent by its Democratic "friends" and billionaire Republicans. Now the Bush administration intends to turn back the clock on many of the laws that labor fought for and won over decades of struggle. Corporate America has begun to target the labor movement. A Wall Street Journal headline on Nov. 8, only three days after the Bush victory, gloated: "Big Labor Could Pay Price After GOP Gains." The article cited only a few of the labor-friendly laws still on the books that have to go. The Fair Labor Standards Act is one. It protects workers' rights with many regulations. Employers want to lengthen the 40-hour week to the "good ol' days" before unions were organized. They want to weaken the Family and Medical Leave Act that gives workers as much as 12 weeks of unpaid leave for health and related problems. The bosses want these workers on the job. Forget about their health and safety and that of their loved ones. Then there is the concern that the International Longshore and Warehouse Union is too strong. Options include placing dock workers under the auspices of the Railway Labor Act. That would make government intervention against the union easier than using the Taft-Hartley Act. An ILWU spokesperson quoted in the Journal said these threats "are unlikely to succeed." There is a resistance emerging from below that could take the glow out of the Bush electoral victory. The Wall Street tycoons' shameless conduct has infuriated millions of workers. They identify the Bush administration with the obscene wealth that has been ripped off at their expense. New York Times labor writer Steven Greenhouse, who has extensive ties to both labor and management, wrote in an Oct. 29 article that "the ebullient mood of American workers during the 1990s boom has evaporated over the last two years, a victim of recession, rising unemployment, a hobbled stock market and scandals at WorldCom, Enron and other corporations." In the piece, headlined "The Mood at Work: Anger and Anxiety" and published a week before the election, Greenhouse warned his liberal capitalist constituents that workers are fed up with the direction of the economy and that major class struggles may soon break out: "Most workers surveyed said they would vote to join a union. ... Workers are voicing a sense of anger, even betrayal toward top executives. ... They're asking people to make sacrifices ... [while they're] feeding at the trough to enrich themselves." Opposition to the Bush billionaire clique and their lies about Iraq, homeland security, and the so-called war on terror is growing. A sector of the organized labor movement and a significant number of AFL-CIO labor councils have taken up this attack. From the Washington State Federation of Labor to the second-largest Teamsters union in the country to the Albany Central Labor Council, many unions, too numerous to mention, have passed anti-war resolutions with overwhelming votes. They oppose the Bush strategy to feed the war drive and the military-industrial complex with billions of dollars that could go toward desperately needed social and economic programs. As the anti-war labor movement grows, the labor bureaucracy will feel the pressure to change direction. They have reached a crossroad. The AFL-CIO must break with the two- party system and the warmongers who speak for different wings of the capitalist bosses. The labor movement's destiny lies with the millions of anti-war activists and their many constituencies that include anti-racist, anti-globalization fighters, youths, seniors, women, and others. In the stormy period ahead, there is no other way. - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] Support the voice of resistance http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
