IN a recent speech to the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) convention in Chicago, John Edwards modestly exclaimed, “I will be the best union president in the history of this country.” Speaking to the United Auto Workers in Dubuque, Iowa, Barack Obama gushed, “I’m ready to go on offense for organized labor; imagine a president who knows what it’s like to put on a comfortable pair of shoes and walk with you on that picket line.”
Not to be outdone, Hillary Clinton donned boxing gloves at a press conference with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and said that she would “go 10 rounds with anybody,” on behalf of labor unions.
There has been nothing coy about the Democratic presidential candidates’ courtship of Big Labor. After all, union endorsements come with armies of door-knocking, phone-calling, sign-waving foot soldiers; union leaders will spend about half a billion dollars on political campaigns this election cycle.
Of course, the union chiefs are making sure their political suitors come bearing gifts, and what they’re after – support for the deceptively named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – is a much bigger present than flowers or chocolate.
EFCA would strip employees of the right to a secret ballot vote, and make it much easier for union organizers to push employees into union membership – which in turn means more dollars for labor leaders.
In other words, “going 10 rounds with anybody” involves sucker-punching working Americans.
Union officials, for their part, view this courtship as an opportunity. The Change to Win coalition – a break-off group from the old AFL-CIO – has added a surcharge onto its members’ dues that will raise up to $14 million over the next two years to fund its political machine to help pass ECFA. (Of course, that would mean even more money for the union political machine.)
In a 2007 convention resolution, Change to Win committed to building a state-of-the-art political program that will focus only on “electing candidates that will help pass EFCA.” AFL-CIO head John Sweeney has committed his unions to spending $200 million in the 2008 election – an unprecedented sum. AFSCME has set a fundraising goal of $35 million, double what it spent in the 2004 election.
The payoff from EFCA would be huge. SEIU President Andy Stern estimated that if the legislation passes, unions would grow by 1.5 million members a year for the next 10 to 15 years. That translates into hundreds of millions of dollars in dues (added to the billions in current dues) to pour right back into Democratic campaign coffers.
Clinton, Obama and Edwards have each committed to their end of the bargain.
Campaigning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, last month, Clinton vowed to be the president who will sign EFCA. Obama is one of the bill’s cosponsors and told the UAW that he is going to lead the fight to pass that legislation. Edwards prominently displays support for the legislation on his Web site.
The payoff won’t end there, though. EFCA might be the crown jewel in labor’s wish list, but there are a number of other economy stifling reforms in the works as well. Among them are socialized medicine, preferential treatment for unionized federal contractors and an increasingly protectionist trade policy.
Democratic candidates have shown their willingness to get in bed with big labor. A Democratic victory in 2008 will mean a massive taxpayer funded payoff to one narrow special interest. And as long as the unions have the organization and resources to make a difference on Election Day, this type of legislation will continue to be supported by their political paramours.
If union officials and politicians are allowed to consummate this relationship in 2008, the result will be a problem child that will choke the American economy for many years to come.
Tim Miller is the communications director for the Center for Union Facts, a nonprofit union watchdog based in Washington, DC.