Labor Takes Breather Before Challenging Governor

The banner in the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor parking lot read “Terminate the Terminator.” The sign-in cards for union members were headlined “Round 2 With Arnold.” And as Democratic gubernatorial contender Phil Angelides spoke to 150 union members, a few dozen union members on the edge of the crowd applauded but did not listen, instead carrying on their own conversations.

Juan Cerna, a janitor in Long Beach, looked away from Angelides. “We need to get the governor out,” he said in Spanish.

Labor unions, particularly those who represent government employees, have dominated the state’s politics in recent years, with unionized nurses, teachers, firefighters and police officers serving as the face of the campaign to defeat Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ballot initiatives in the 2005 special election.

But although those same unions are among the most aggressive players in today’s Democratic primary, union leaders said they were taking a bit of a breather to recover from the special election and were hoarding most of their resources for an effort to remove Schwarzenegger from office in the fall.

The fate of Angelides’ campaign against state Controller Steve Westly may hang in the balance. Angelides, the state treasurer, has bet heavily that the unions that defeated Schwarzenegger’s initiatives will turn out enough votes to give him a narrow victory today.

On Monday, Angelides toured the state, addressing union audiences while accompanied by labor leaders such as Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, and Bob Balgenorth, president of the State Building and Construction Trades Council.

Even a member of Angelides’ traveling party Monday, Art Pulaski, executive secretary-treasurer of the California Labor Federation, said of the primary: “It doesn’t have the same intensity. We are saving our energy for the big one in the fall.”

The unions, which last year could focus entirely on the governor, now have priorities other than Schwarzenegger’s defeat.

The California Nurses Assn., which hounded the governor at public appearances last year, is sponsoring its own initiative on the November ballot, a measure to require public financing of political campaigns in California.

The California Teachers Assn., the state’s most politically potent union, endorsed Angelides, and, along with unions representing firefighters and electrical workers, gave money to an independent expenditure committee that is funding TV ads against Westly. But the union is unlikely to spend anywhere close to the more than $50 million it devoted to beating the governor’s initiatives last year.

At this weekend’s meeting of the State Council of Education, CTA’s top policymaking body, teachers made phone calls on Angelides’ behalf but for the most part focused on legislation and internal union issues.

“People are exhausted after last year,” said Sandra Fink, a Glendale physical education teacher, who worked on a CTA phone bank. “We’ve got to give people a chance to catch their breath.”

Across the state, both rank-and-file union members and some union leaders said they had been turned off by the bitter contest between Angelides and Westly.

“I’m not pleased with either one of them at this point,” said Rob Feckner, president of the California School Employees Assn., which represents more than 230,000 education-support professionals and has endorsed Angelides. “These attack ads have done nothing more than given help to the governor in the long run. They spent a lot of money that they shouldn’t have spent.”

More than a few union leaders speak wistfully of the 2005 fight against Schwarzenegger. They are counting on the governor’s celebrity -- and his penchant for saying things that enrage union members -- to fuel a big campaign in the fall.

“The way to get people excited is to bang the governor,” said Javier Gonzalez, political director of Service Employees International Union Local 1877, which represents janitors. “The primary is a dry run for getting rid of Arnold.”

Union leaders said their fall campaign would not match the special election campaign, at least financially. Labor spent more than $100 million against Schwarzenegger and his initiatives last year.

For their part, Westly’s aides discounted labor’s reach in helping Angelides.

“Yes, he gets a boost with the organizational structure,” said Nick Velasquez, a Westly spokesman. “But there’s a question of whether the rank-and-file will follow.”

Perhaps the most sophisticated union effort on Angelides’ behalf is a campaign by the county labor federation in Los Angeles. For the last three weeks, the federation has had four active phone banks. Cellphones are available when seats in the phone banks fill up.

More than 600,000 pieces of election mail have been sent out. Members of federation-affiliated unions have been contacted at least six times and as many as 21 times with information about today’s primary, union records show.

Angelides visited the federation headquarters, just west of downtown, three times in the last 11 days. He also joined Maria Elena Durazo, the county labor federation leader, in knocking on the doors of union members who live in the City Terrace neighborhood.

(When Angelides expressed some trepidation about a barking dog, Durazo advised him to shake the front gates of houses he approached and wait a few seconds to see if a dog appeared. “I never knew that,” replied the candidate, who dutifully began shaking the gates at each house he visited.)

On the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, Angelides spoke to precinct walkers and union organizers at federation headquarters. “I can’t wait to have each and every one of you in the governor’s office,” he told about 70 of them.

“Are we going to win on June 6?” Angelides asked.

“Yes,” said the union members, with no particular force.

“Are we going to score a huge victory in November?” he then asked.

“Yes!” they roared.