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 | Elian Gonzalez saga could haunt Obama | |
| Gitmo trial looms in election homestretch | |
| Back at Senate, Clinton treated like royal | |
| GOP favoritism in new IG report | |
| How Hoyer got the deal done | |
| LA Times/Bloomberg Poll: Obama +12 | |
| IN Polls: Prez Race Even, Gov Race Close | |
| McCain's Psychological Benefits | |
| VP Watch: Michigan Numbers | |
| The Charm Offensive Continues |
| A Transportation Stimulus | |
| McCain's Speech in Santa Barbara | |
| A Serious Energy Policy for Our Future | |
| The Imitators | |
| 'Victims' of Cut-Rate Loans |
| Hillary's Health Plan Still the Best | |
| November's Magic Numbers | |
| Clinton's Remarkable Run | |
| Who's to Blame? It Was Mark Penn |
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January 18, 2008
Bill & Hillary: Union-Busters?
By Ronald A. CassFresh from the Listening Tour, the Hillary I Know Tour, the Watch Me Cry Tour, and the Clintons for Change Tour (traveling the Back to the Future Express), the dynamic duo rolled into Nevada with a new message that should be music to conservative ears, but not an easy tune for them to carry: Let's Break the Unions!
The Clintons now tell Nevada caucus participants: don't follow the union bosses' directions. Think for yourselves. Act as individuals. Just because a union's governing body decides to support, say, Barack Obama is no reason to follow along blindly. After all, what right do union bosses have to tell the rank-and-file how to behave, to dictate your political choices? Not that there's anything wrong with that when it's the AFSCME union endorsing Hillary, but it's downright Orwellian mind-control when leaders of the local Culinary Workers Union pick the wrong gal (or guy). That's why Hillary shamelessly went door to door in Las Vegas imploring Culinary Workers to ignore union directions while Bill lectured workers on independent thinking.
After getting Hillary endorsements from the leaders of 13 unions representing 6 million members, thanks to relentless pursuit of every establishment credential they could find, the Clintons responded with outrage that a local union with 60,000 members could prefer her primary opponent. As Bill said, this shows the "establishment organization" is with Senator Obama, while the "insurgents" are with Hillary. (Somehow I missed Hillary's days as a grass-roots community organizer - which must have come somewhere between her stints as First Lady of Arkansas and First Lady of the U.S., great places to hone those bottom-up organizing skills!)
That endorsement sparked the recognition that union bosses are elitists whose power hurts workers. In his best, red-faced, finger-pointing, hoarse-shouting style (right on cue for the 10-year anniversary of Matt Drudge's exposure of the Monica story), Bill told listeners that union leaders "they think they're better than you are" and challenged workers to buck the unions.
Of course, Hillary and Bill aren't suggesting that the 6 million members of unions endorsing Hillary should be independent. Union members should still vote for Hillary when union leaders say they should, but they also should vote for Hillary when the union says they shouldn't. That's the kind of independent thinking the Clintons want.
The new call for independence for union members runs smack into the ingrained view of Democratic union-backers that workers can't stand up for themselves as individuals. That's the idea all pro-union laws are built on - individual workers need unions to stand up for them. For 75 years, Democrats have insisted that workers can't decide whether to stay out of a union other workers have chosen, that workers can't negotiate for themselves on issues within the union leadership's portfolio, and even that workers can't decide whether they want to have their money go to a union, much less direct how it's spent.
Conservatives long have challenged the assertions that workers are better off having someone tell them what they should do, having unions speak for workers, take money from them, and spend money on political causes (and, implicitly, candidates) that the union leaders favor. But Democrats, backed by huge infusions of union money, keep a system in place predicated on just the opposite view.
The system works well for the union leaders and the candidates they support. Laws pushed by Democrats have allowed union taxation of worker wages to support leaders' spending priorities. Unions collect $8 billion or so annually through involuntary assessments. One court, looking at union spending, found that about 80 percent of union collections went not to worker representation and collective bargaining but to political activity. Something like 95 percent of this spending goes to help Democrats. In the 2000 elections, unions spent an estimated $800 million on attack ads and other political activities to promote Democrats, including Senate candidate Hillary Clinton (a special favorite of the United Auto Workers Union). The AFL-CIO alone will spend $200 million on the 2008 races.
That's not small change, even for a party now obsessed with change.
The Supreme Court's 1988 decision in Communications Workers v. Beck ruled that union members have the right not to support political spending they don't agree with. But one of President Bill Clinton's first acts was to repeal an executive order from President George H.W. Bush implementing the Beck decision (by requiring federal contractors post notices telling workers they aren't required to give money to unions for political spending). Bill and the union establishment saw no reason even to let workers know they have the right to think for themselves when that threatens the Democrats' prime engine of political sponsorship.
But that was then.
The Clintons are nothing if not flexible. Bill can lie straight-faced about anything with enough charm to almost make you believe it, and Hillary will morph into any character - from tough cookie to cookie baker - to get votes. Yesterday, she was the candidate of experience. Today, she's the candidate of change, even if that just means she gets the Oval Office and Bill gets to have tea with the other spouses.
Few people bother to challenge Bill and Hillary's reversals and revisions - like backing a lawsuit challenging the location of caucus sites in Las Vegas that their team helped pick when they thought the Culinary Workers Union would endorse Hillary. Blatant self-interest and bold infidelity to facts are simply part of the package we've all come to know. But the former and would-be future First Couple continues to push the envelope.
In the last couple of weeks, comments by the Clintons and close supporters have shown astounding disregard for anyone and anything in their way. Andrew Cuomo (of the famously sensitive political family) said that Senator Obama can't "shuck and jive" his way to the White House. Charlie Rangel called Obama "absolutely stupid" - for something Obama never said. Bob Johnson elliptically reminded voters of Obama's youthful drug use (what he was doing in Chicago in the 1970s that we really can't say in public), then explained that referred to Obama's community organizing. Uh-huh. Hillary claimed she doesn't want race or gender to play a role in the campaign - so long as women understand she'd be the first woman to break the "hardest glass ceiling" and that sisterhood trumps brotherhood.
For liberals, the assault on union leadership has to be the cherry topping off this sundae of sloppy reasoning, shameless self-promotion, callous indifference to fact, and calculated insinuation.
For the rest of us, maybe this one time - just this once - we should take Bill and Hillary at their word. Let's show that new bipartisan spirit. Take up their cause. Roll back rules that support union politicking. Let workers spend their own money and pick their own candidates. And see how Democrats really like union members exercising their independence.
