Washington Post - March 14, 2000
Lean Labor's Big Win By E. J. Dionne Jr
When the envelopes were opened on Super Tuesday announcing the award winners for this stage of campaign 2000, most fans paid attention only to the already anticipated victories of the two leading actors, Al Gore and George W. Bush. But the prize that may carry the greatest significance for the long term went to the campaign's best supporting actor: Big Labor.
Well, not exactly Big Labor, a term with little meaning now. But so far this year, America's union movement has proven itself to be lean, focused and shrewd. The unions delivered to Gore when it mattered, and they did so without arousing the high-profile antagonism that religious conservatives let loose in Republican ranks. Organized labor's steady march back to political influence began in the 1996 elections and gained speed in 1998. This year could be better still.
Buried in last Tuesday's results was the Democratic primary victory of California state Sen. Hilda Solis over nine-term incumbent Rep. Matthew G. "Marty" Martinez. Incumbents don't usually lose primaries, and the standard account of the race, which is true as far as it goes, is that Martinez had been in office a long time and had, as they say, "lost touch" with his heavily Latino district in suburban Los Angeles.
But what gave Solis the ability to rout Martinez by 2 to 1 was her anointment by the unions. As chair of the labor committee, Solis "killed every anti-union bill that came before her," says Miguel Contreras, the executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor. Martinez, in the meantime, had signaled he might support the Clinton administration's request for fast-track trading authority, a position anathema to the unions.
The Solis victory is a warning to incumbents in heavily Democratic districts. The unions can challenge them in primaries with little risk that their seats might go Republican on Election Day.
"We're sending a message," says Contreras. "This is a very blue-collar, union district. We ought to be sending warriors from these districts and not just someone who'll give us a vote occasionally. . . . Marty was not terrible. He didn't have a 40 percent voting record. He didn't have a 60 percent voting record. He had an 80 percent voting record. But we're looking for 100 percent." It's a hard line that might swing a few votes against the administration's effort to grant permanent normal trading status to China, a move passionately opposed by the labor movement.
In the case of Gore's campaign, the national AFL-CIO not only delivered; it offered its endorsement last fall when it could make the most difference.
Gore was on the ropes. The newspapers were full of stories about a Bill Bradley surge and reports of chaos in the Gore operation. In politics, backing a guy when he's down produces lasting gratitude, especially since a failure to endorse at that moment could have crippled Gore's chances. "The expectation was created that we were going to endorse, so it would have been a major setback if we didn't," says Steve Rosenthal, the AFL-CIO's political director.
And when voting time came in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary--as it turns out, the only two contests that really mattered in the Democratic race--labor's legions made a large difference. In Iowa, voters from union families made up a third of all caucus goers, and they backed Gore by nearly 3 to 1. In New Hampshire, Gore narrowly lost the nonunion vote, but beat Bradley by better than 3 to 2 among union households. The contest was effectively over by Super Tuesday. But even then, voters with union ties were more pro-Gore than the rest of the electorate.
Bush, no friend of the unions, will try to make Gore pay a price for his friendship with labor. Count on hearing the words "Big Labor" in unflattering contexts over the coming months. But as Rosenthal notes, Gore has an advantage in this argument: He is bucking the unions on China policy and will thus have an early opportunity to declare his independence. The trick, Rosenthal admits, will be to have the China fight and then find a way of reuniting against Bush.
Paradoxically, Bush may make that easier if he goes hard after the unions. Rosenthal says three decades of reporting about labor's decline robs what he calls "the union bosses this, the union bosses that" argument of much of its old power. Attacks on unions may galvanize labor's forces without mobilizing much opposition. By providing troops but making itself a smaller target, Lean Labor could prove itself as powerful as Big Labor ever was.