Unless you are among the 27 percent of American workers who don't get Monday off, you're probably looking forward to next week's Labor Day holiday, with its barbecues and back-to-school sales. But organized labor -- which earned us the holiday in a political sop after soldiers and U.S. marshals killed striking workers in 1894 -- sees no respite in the day as it fights an uphill battle for tangible political victories in Washington.
"Labor Day marks the start of the fall, the period when we get down to business," promised AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker at the labor coalition's annual pre-Labor Day press conference yesterday. The event promoted a new study the coalition commissioned on young workers, who are doing worse now than they were 10 years ago: Nearly one-third of workers under 35 live with their parents; 31 percent are uninsured, up from 24 percent a decade ago; and 51 percent lack a retirement plan, an increase in 10 percent since 1999.
But the real message is that labor is running out of patience, once again, as congressional Democrats and the Obama administration try to solve these problems. True, the AFL-CIO's leadership continues to emphasize their support of the president and congressional leadership, recognizing that more has been done for workers in the past six months than in the previous eight years, through executive orders that protect public workers, the appointments of a pro-worker labor secretary and National Labor Review Board members, and a fiscal stimulus package meant to bolster employment during a recession.
But labor's two top priorities -- health-care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act -- are still outstanding, and somewhat in peril.
Health-care reform negotiations have stalled in the Senate as Republicans involved in Sen. Max Baucus' bipartisan talks have gradually revealed they don't want a deal at all but would prefer to kill reform efforts. The Employee Free Choice Act, an effort to make it easier for workers to join unions, lost steam last spring as conservatives made hay with mendacious claims that the bill would take away workers' secret ballots. Health-care reform could, in theory, be passed with a simple majority, but EFCA is at the mercy of a filibuster that could only be broken with a united Democratic caucus -- an unlikely outcome, given the loss of Sen. Ted Kennedy, the illness of Sen. Robert Byrd, and the wavering of various moderate Democrats from states including Arkansas, Colorado, and Nebraska.
That puts labor in a pickle. They've spent a lot of money and time helping elect a Democratic government, but they haven't yet seen much return in policy changes, despite dark conservative whisperings that labor is somehow running the show in Washington. But in two weeks, at a national convention set to include a speech from Obama, John Sweeney, the venerable president of the AFL-CIO, will step down after 14 years, in favor of Richard Trumka, the organization's secretary-treasurer. Trumka gained notice last year with a fiery, plainspoken speech endorsing Obama and frankly urging white voters to get over their racial discomfort with the candidate.
Recently, Trumka delivered another union hall stem-winder, this time against the moderate and conservative Democrats who have been the chief opponents of the White House's progressive agenda: "We need to send them a special message: It's that you may have forgotten what the labor movement did to get you elected, but, by God, we never will! And if you stab us in the back on health care this year, don't you dare ask us for our support next year!" (Labor unions have been the largest contributors to conservative House Democrats this year.)
The speech, delivered to the Sheet Metal Workers International Association, wasn't made carelessly: The SMWIA is the only labor union to suspend all donations to Democrats until, you guessed it, EFCA and health-care reform are passed. Asked if the entire AFL-CIO might follow suit, Sweeney would only say that the decision is "something that will have to be considered" at the convention.
Do Trumka and the AFL-CIO know what they're doing? All year they've said with complete confidence that Employee Free Choice will pass by the end of 2009, despite diminishing support on Capitol Hill and a crowded legislative calendar. After yesterday's press conference, I asked Trumka how he would reinvigorate enthusiasm for EFCA once some kind of health-care legislation is passed. He blithely assured me that it would be "priority number one."
When asked by another reporter whether he would consider a widely touted EFCA compromise, dropping "card check" -- majority union sign-up -- in favor of an accelerated union election, Trumka got in a dig at the messy health-care reform process that demonstrated his understanding of the problems on the Hill.
"We're not accustomed to negotiating in public," he said. "We've seen a version of that in the last couple of weeks, and it hasn't been very successful or fruitful for those that are negotiating with themselves."
Trumka's own health-care reform position has left him painted into a bit of a corner. The AFL-CIO will only support legislation that has an employer mandate, no taxes on health-care benefits, and a public insurance option, with Trumka calling the conditions "absolute musts." As progressive policy, Trumka's on solid ground, but while an employer mandate seems likely, it's harder to foresee a public option in the final bill, and taxing expensive health-care plans remains one of the few choices to pay for the plan. In political terms, Trumka may have just promised not to support health-care reform at all.
A bill that breaks all three of those commandments could still be a good bill that provides something close to universal health care -- something Trumka's workers, and the rest of the country, desperately need. But maybe Trumka does know what he's doing: Labor's legislative strategy may be opaque, but at least the movement stands for something that is easy to articulate. Meanwhile, Baucus' strategy is incomprehensible, and his only commitment seems to be giving away the farm. The burly union leader seems to know something the Montana senator doesn't: A concession is only as valuable to the opposition as they believe it is to you.
