Democrats Haven’t Spurned Unions

A few labor delegates to the Democratic convention last week grimaced when Bill Clinton said in accepting the party’s nomination that it is “not conservative or liberal, Democratic or Republican. It is (a) new (party).”

They were worried because it sounded to them as though the party’s right-wing Democratic Leadership Council (DLC)--whose founders include Clinton and his running mate, Al Gore--had finally broken up the party’s traditional coalition of liberals, labor and minorities.

True, only four of the convention speakers were union leaders and the words organized labor weren’t mentioned by Clinton or Gore, or in the party’s platform.

But those delegates hadn’t paid much attention to the many private labor caucuses and were unaware of the changes made in the platform that was first drafted by the DLC, which the Rev. Jesse Jackson ridiculed as the Democratic Leisure Class.

The causes of unions and workers generally were not slighted. All that happened was that union members, who made up nearly 25% of the convention delegates, had accepted Clinton’s pleas to avoid confrontational floor battles. When I arrived at the convention, I argued with several key union leaders that they should demand a public commitment from Clinton to be an open advocate of organized labor.

But they persuasively countered that such a demand could weaken Democratic unity, so urgently needed to defeat President Bush, who makes no secret of his opposition to labor.

Besides, unions are still a powerful force in the Democratic Party. Most of their goals are in the party platform, and the candidates are saying things the working middle class loves to hear.

It can even be argued that unions and their allies have distanced Clinton and Gore from the party’s right-wing DLC more than the DLC has distanced the candidates from labor and its allies.

Two key labor representatives helped revise the platform so it conforms with many of labor’s goals. Ken Young, who has just retired as the top AFL-CIO staff executive, said the Clinton people accepted almost all of labor’s platform suggestions.

His upbeat view was echoed by Rachelle Horowitz, political director of the American Federation of Teachers, and her husband, Tom Donahue, the articulate, influential AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer.

The DLC advocated a small government role in solving critical economic and social problems. Now the platform says “we believe in an activist government, but it must work in a different, more responsive way,” a caveat no one opposed.

The platform, and Clinton, want an industrial policy to coordinate government, management and labor efforts to revitalize the economy, a longstanding goal of labor.

The “new” Democratic Party wants closely monitored, massive government investments to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and more money for public--not private--schools.

Two other important examples:

* A vast new nationwide “apprenticeship-style” program to help young people get “high-wage, high-skill jobs” if they don’t go to college.

* A new system of college student loans that would be repaid in cash or by the graduates taking “national service” jobs such as teachers’ aides, social and health workers and police.

These programs will mean more, not less, government assistance, yet Bush cannot logically damn them as “old, failed tax-and-spend” moves of unions and liberals.

For one thing, many are new. Also, in return for a more compassionate government, direct beneficiaries will help pay for the programs, directly or by public service that will cut government costs.

New money needed will come from less military spending, more government efficiency and tax hikes. But America’s working middle class, which includes most union members, won’t object if the nation’s wealthiest have to pay more taxes.

Clinton wants to revive the progressive tax structure we had before Reagan and Bush that was based largely on ability to pay. The Democrats are talking about a tax increase for the richest Americans to raise $92 billion over four years. That wouldn’t break them.

If our income tax in 1991 was as progressive as before the Reagan-Bush era, the richest 5% would have paid $75 billion more last year alone, according to Robert Reich, Harvard professor and architect of Clinton’s new economic plan.

The platform does talk about the Democrats’ belief in free enterprise, and it “honor(s) business as a noble endeavor.”

But it quickly adds that our workplaces “must be revolutionized” to give workers a meaningful voice in running the companies and making their jobs safe and healthy--other goals of labor.

Reagan and Bush were openly anti-union. The Democrats say “government’s neutrality between labor and management cannot mean neutrality about the collective bargaining process, which has been purposely crippled by Republican administrations.”

Unions can expect a sympathetic White House to help strengthen them with labor law reforms. Clinton and the platform already support a key labor goal: legislation to prohibit employers from “permanently replacing” strikers.

That’s critical, since the ability to permanently replace strikers contradicts the law that also assures workers they are free to strike without fear of being fired for exercising that right.

A large majority in Congress passed legislation to stop such strikebreaking. Bush vetoed it. Labor couldn’t get enough votes to override. With Clinton as president, there would be few vetos of that or other pro-worker, pro-union legislation.

There may be a “new” Democratic Party, as Clinton says, but those union delegates to the convention who worried that labor would be excluded from it worried needlessly. Labor is still an integral force in it.