UNIONS AND POLITICS. Kelly Candaele, a former Los Angeles AFL-CIO employee, has one of those occasional op-eds counseling that the union movement recede from politics and focus on organizing. A couple thoughts: � Candaele is using Chicago's law forcing Big Box retailers to pay a living wage as her jumping-off point. But that was a local initiative, not an outcome of the national movement's priorities. And while I agree with her that Chicago's law was basically useless for the unions (and possibly counterproductive), there's little doubt that national labor laws need to undergo radical reform if Labor is to enjoy a resurgence. For organizing to succeed, the context in which it occurs may have to change. For that reason, the real test of the soundness of Labor's priorities is whether they force a Democratic Congress -- which would be largely elected by their GOTV operation and campaign donations -- to liberalize the labor laws. If the unions make Pelosi Speaker, Rep. George Miller's Employee Free Choice Act should be her top priority. As Harold Meyerson detailed, the EFCA "would legalize card check, mandate mediation and binding arbitration if a first contract is not signed within 90 days of the union certification, and increase the penalties for employers who violate the nation�s labor law." If Pelosi doesn't push it hard, unions should simply abandon the Democratic Party in the next election. � The nature of the union-employer relationship will always be oppositional, but it needn't be as fraught with fear and terror as it is now. Much of what distorts it so dramatically are health costs. The examples of Ford and GM are instructive because, as their current plights show, a perfectly natural coverage agreement today can, thanks to health care inflation, new technologies, and increased longevity, become a totally untenable financial arrangement tomorrow. Wages are defined, set, controllable; health care is unpredictable, massively expensive, near impossible to contain. A company offering insurance and a high salary can, in times of financial distress, freeze pay hikes. They can't stop their employees from getting sick. If the government were to take responsibility for the health care provision, however, unions could go back to arguing over wages, safety regulations, and worker conditions. That's much more natural ground, and while employers won't accept it without a fight, they won't judge it such an existential threat, making the job a whole lot easier for organizers. � I'll have more to say on this in the future, but it's worth noting that the goals of the labor movement and the progressive movement aren't the same. They intersect, to be sure, but unions are focused on winning tangible gains for their workers now. Progressives are, or at least should be, engaged in a longer-term project of creating a better, more just society for everyone, regardless of employment status. Unions are a necessary portion of that, but they're an aspect, not a substitute. Unions, for instance, may want Wal-Mart to offer better health care now. Progressives, in my view, should want Wal-Mart not to stand in the way of nationalized health care now, and might view a slightly better menu of options for Wal-Mart employees as delaying the ultimate, more important victory.
--Ezra Klein
