Labor Unions Refine Tactics to Flex Muscle at the Polls

Organized labor is betting that a revived emphasis on its traditional bread-and-butter agenda will inspire rank-and-file workers in California to go to the polls Nov. 5 and reject what union leaders see as the anti-labor bias of the Republican Party.

No union leader in Sacramento is more crucial to that strategy than Dean C. Tipps, a little-known, onetime tax reform advocate who has served for most of a decade as the secretary-treasurer of the state council of the Service Employees International Union.

Under Tipps, the state’s largest union pumped more than $1 million into successful drives to get two initiatives on the ballot: Proposition 217, which raises the state’s top income tax bracket, and Proposition 214, which would change the health care industry.

The politically aggressive SEIU also spent at least $100,000 as part of a united labor effort to back Proposition 210, which would increase the minimum wage.

Labor is flexing its muscle in other ways, too: The AFL-CIO is funneling $35 million nationwide to spotlight the records of targeted GOP members of Congress, including California Reps. Frank Riggs of Windsor and Andrea Seastrand of Shell Beach. Also, for the first time on a statewide level, it is mounting an issue-oriented education campaign among its own members to drum up opposition to Republicans.

The Republican Party has returned the fire. In TV spots, the GOP has blasted “the big labor bosses” who “have a big scheme to buy the Congress.” Critics also complain that labor leaders are out of touch with their members.

Tipps, who directed campaigns for Assembly Democrats in 1988, scoffs at that suggestion.

“We have a democratic process,” said Tipps. “I just can’t go out and make things appear. Our leadership voted to increase the resources we put into initiatives.”

With less than three weeks to go before the election, the success of labor’s strategy in close congressional and legislative contests could influence which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives and the state Assembly. “The 1994 experience was kind of a wake-up call,” Tipps said, citing the GOP election landslide that for the first time in decades swept Republicans into control of the Assembly and House.

At stake is the heart of labor’s political agenda. Labor leaders contend that Republicans have advanced proposals that run counter to the interests of their members and are intended to hold down wages, weaken overtime pay requirements, dismantle prevailing wage laws and undermine worker safety standards.

Historically, union members have knocked on doors for Democratic candidates, operated presses to print mailers for aspiring politicians and funneled big campaign contributions to their allies. But union leaders say the aggressive use of initiatives and TV ads marks a turning point for the union movement in California.

John Herrington, chairman of the state GOP, agrees. He called new AFL-CIO President John Sweeney “the most partisan labor leader I have ever known in my 30 years in politics. You have to hand it to them, they know the stakes.”

But Republican political consultants say they do not detect the massive door-to-door campaign union leaders are trumpeting. Nor do they think it would be successful.

Said GOP consultant Wayne Johnson: “You can only give orders to people who are willing to accept them. . . . Californians just don’t do that.”

Reflecting the decline of union representation in manufacturing since the 1950s, public employees now provide much of the energy behind labor’s political struggle.

Increasingly, public school teachers, prison guards and other government workers, many represented by SEIU, have become major players at the Capitol.

In California, one way unions believe they can make a comeback is by using pro-labor ballot measures to rally their members to the polls--much as Republicans sought to gain an edge in 1994 with Proposition 187, the initiative to cut public benefits to illegal immigrants.

Tipps acknowledged that Proposition 210 and the other union-supported measures were put on the ballot partly to drive up voter turnout, as well as to address problems ignored by the Legislature.

With that in mind, the SEIU, whose 300,000 members include public workers, has pumped at least $417,000 into Proposition 217 and $673,000 into Proposition 214, according to public disclosure reports.

The California Chamber of Commerce has labeled these initiatives “job killers,” and Republicans have complained about labor’s political spending. AFL-CIO officials counter that their expenditures are dwarfed by campaign spending lavished on GOP candidates by businesses.

While little known outside the labor movement, Tipps is no stranger to the political rough-and-tumble. He is a onetime director of Citizens for Tax Justice, a labor- and public interest-backed tax policy group, and in 1988 oversaw campaigns for then-Assembly Democratic Speaker Willie Brown.

Tipps, 53, grew up in West Los Angeles; he and his family live in the Sacramento area. He has degrees from Whittier College and UC Berkeley. He has written articles on tax policy and in 1983 co-wrote a book critical of President Reagan’s tax policies.

He is described by friends as a savvy insider who shuns publicity but whose ability to help direct union contributions have propelled him into the inner circles of Democratic politics.

They say Tipps--like other union leaders--has the ear of Democrats as they decide how to parcel out campaign funds.

Assembly Democratic Leader Richard Katz of Sylmar acknowledged that Tipps is among several labor leaders with whom he consults. “He is data driven. He loves polls and research,” Katz said.

But Tipps has his share of detractors.

Backers of Proposition 216--a rival health care initiative--say SEIU and Tipps have confused voters by placing Proposition 214 on the ballot.

Consumer activist Harvey Rosenfield, a key figure in the drive to get Proposition 216 before voters, has complained that Proposition 214 is “a spoiler.”

Tipps’ decision to press forward with the rival measure “has created voter confusion that the insurance industry [which opposes both] is jumping to exploit,” Rosenfield said.

Tipps calls that suggestion “garbage,” adding that Proposition 214 has stronger patient protection provisions.

Organized labor’s election blueprint, however, is not limited to placing initiatives on the ballot.

Another key aspect relies on old-fashioned precinct walking for candidates and measures. But instead of knocking on doors of likely voters, labor volunteers head for homes of union members where they focus on such basic union issues as preserving the eight-hour day.

“On election day in 1994 many union votes stayed home. We’ve been paying for it ever since,” says one labor handbill, alluding to the Republican landslide. The flier cites proposals advanced by members of the Assembly Republican majority to restrict overtime and wages.

Art Pulaski, the newly elected secretary-treasurer of the state Labor Federation, said he has walked precincts in Burbank, where Democrat Scott Wildman is scrambling against Republican John Geranios to win the seat being vacated by Assemblyman James E. Rogan (R-Glendale).

“I think we are having more active volunteers get involved than perhaps we ever have . . . [because] people are feeling more under siege from certain interests in Sacramento and in the Congress,” said Pulaski.

“We’re changing the way the California Labor Federation does business . . . about politics,” Pulaski declared at a news conference to support Proposition 212, one of two rival political reform measures.

As important as this year’s election is to labor, union leaders are also looking beyond November to 1998, when they hope to help elect a pro-union Democratic governor after 16 years of GOP gubernatorial reign.

Coincidentally, that election will mark the 40th anniversary of a high-water mark for labor. It was in 1958 that labor mobilized to defeat a “right to work” measure on the ballot and swept Democrat Edmund G. “Pat” Brown into the governor’s office.