Right-wing efforts to take away unions' collective political power rest on an idea that each individual worker ought to "sign an annual authorization before any portion of their dues money could be spent for political purposes" ("Proposition 226--the Issues before Workers," <http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/apr1998/p226-a24.shtml>), and that is not what I am talking about here.
What I am saying is the question of democracy within unions and other liberal interest groups, as well as relations between them and constituencies that they claim to represent:
There ought to be discussion among rank-and-file unionists as to the political direction of their unions, how their union dues should be spent, which countries' bonds in which their pension funds ought not to be invested, and all other issues of importance to their lives. And important issues -- such as which candidates to support -- should be put to votes.
It is lack of such democratic decision-making processes that makes unions vulnerable to right-wing disinformation campaigns against unions' political contributions.
Moreover, lack of political debates among unionists about how their own unions should participate in national politics makes them politically inactive, disengaged from the duty to take part in the running of their own unions as well as their own country.
>Should the SEIU also have held a plebicite of members before they
>endorsed gay marriage?
If democracy is good for national politics, it should be good for politics within each union as well.
>Is their endorsement of that movement illegitimate because elected
>union leaders decided it was important to the union values to be
>involved?
That depends on the degree of legitimacy of each union election.
>All of the organizations listed above have elections for leaders,
>who in turn may collectively endorse candidate in various democratic
>votes.
How does each of the aforementioned organization elect its leaders? To what extent is each election democratic? What are the proportions of their respective members who participate in the elections of their leaders?
>You seem to be demanding that each organization run a mini-primary
>involving their millions of members before they can act. And of
>course, requiring that vote would completely disable the power of
>the organizational leaders to bargain with candidates for
>concessions from the candidates. Instead, the candidates could
>appeal based on other issues-- just imagine a pro-life or pro-gun
>candidate trying to pick off a labor endorsement through such a
>plebiscite and never have to promise a thing on labor issues to get
>the endorsement. Not to mention the expense of such elections for
>them to be meaningful.
Well, even the cleanest election costs money, and dictatorship may be less expensive and more efficient than democracy, but that doesn't make you prefer dictatorship to democracy, except in the midst of a civil war or something equally dire, does it?
More union democracy, which has a potential of raising the level of political consciousness and participation among unionists, may have an effect opposite to what you fear and increase unions' bargaining power vis-a-vis political parties and candidates.
>Look at your Greens, Yoshie. The ultra-process folks couldn't even
>hold a vote without two sides denouncing each other for an
>"undemocratic" vote.
When there is democratic deficit in the organization, it becomes weaker, not stronger, and the Green Party this year is no exception.
>John Kerry won a primary plebiscite involving more union voters,
>black voters, latino voters, gay voters or any other kind of
>progressive voters you might mention.
What proportions of union, Black, Latino, gay, and other progressive voters among all union, Black, Latino, gay, and other progressive voters participated in the Democratic Party primaries in general?
How many of them voted in Iowa and New Hampshire?
Yoshie