February 2005 Issue
AFL-CIO-GOP?
Amanda Morris '06It was a hot day in August last year when my friend Katie and I were driving down to see President Bush at a campaign rally in Stratham, NH. We could tell we were getting closer to the venue as the streets became lined with protestors.
Their signs ran the gamut from the inane to the trite. Every imaginable hackneyed one-liner was prominently displayed: “Bush Lied, People Died,” “Re-Defeat George W. Bush.”
One sign, however, stood out from the rest. It was a long banner, held up by three men: “Mr. President, NH/ME workers are NOT the enemy.”
My gut reaction was one of indignation. Of course New Hampshire and Maine workers are not the enemy. President Bush has made it clear throughout his presidency, and certainly since September 11th, that the terrorists are the real enemies. How could these people even think such a thing? Yet the sign struck a chord in me. Growing up in a Union household, in a small town essentially known for and dominated by a huge Wal-Mart, has ingrained in me a sensitivity to labor issues that often seem absent in the party I so staunchly support and trust on most other issues.
I enjoyed the President’s speech that day, although I confess I remember very few of its details. Talking points tend to run together after a while. But that one sign has haunted me ever since. I was off campus in the fall and spent a few months living in my blue-collar town on central Long Island. Throughout the course of the pre-election season, it became clear to me that the Republican Party, the party that represents my moral values and the party that I feel will keep us safe, is also a party that demonstrates almost blatant hostility for an important group of individuals who, like me, tend to be naturally conservative: unionized workers and their families. It occurred to me that it would be in the best interests of my party to reach out to these hardworking Americans, for both strategic and ideological reasons. It would also be in the best interest of labor unions not to dismiss any overtures from pro-labor Republicans without careful consideration.
I recognize that many people on both ends of the political spectrum will be skeptical of this. After all, unionized workers have consistently voted Democrat since time immemorial. Republicans have, in many ways, written off unionized workers, and have alienated what could be a highly influential conservative voting bloc.
Why are union workers so often seen as the enemy in this country?
From its inception, the labor movement has been associated with Marxism, socialism and Communism. It was a movement associated with immigrant workers, who were viewed as subversive in a time of intense xenophobia. It is probably true that in the early days of the labor movement, there was a prominent Marxist/Socialist influence, largely because many prominent leaders came from Europe, where such ideologies were quite popular. To make matters worse, those who do not associate unionism with communism often associate it with the mafia. Thus, unionism is forced to combat two stigmatizing stereotypes at once.
But what does today's average American worker have to do with communism, or, for that matter, the mob? To condemn organized labor based on the fact that communists support it is like condemning the Republican Party on the basis that Ku Klux Klan members generally vote Republican. The overwhelming majority of Republicans have nothing to do with the Ku Klux Klan. Similarly, the average union member has just as little to do with Communists. So why are labor unions and their members consistently viewed by Republicans as anti-capitalist, or as having interests that run somehow counter to American ideals?
When I think of the typical union member, I think not of an enemy but of a hard-working man in some Midwestern state, who is very likely to be Catholic and who shares many values of the Republican Party. According to CNN.com, John Kerry attracted 61 percent of union votes nationwide and 59 percent from people with union members in their families. Now, let’s look at how close the margin of victory was in some states with large labor lobbies. In Pennsylvania, Kerry attracted 63 percent of union voters. In Wisconsin, a state which Bush lost by only 0.4 percent of the vote, Kerry picked up 62 percent of the union vote. In Michigan, Kerry picked up 66 percent of the union vote. How many of those voters shared Bush’s views on abortion, or education, or combating terrorism? Probably most of them, but they were ultimately drawn in by the idea of John Edwards’ “Two Americas”—one rich and one poor. They were somehow led to believe that John Kerry was going to be the people’s candidate, the candidate who could truly relate to the working class, $1000 haircuts and his own elitist background notwithstanding.
The Republican Party made one effort, or at least overture, toward reaching out to union workers, but even this simply tried to disguise anti-labor policies under the pretext of “family values.” President Bush strongly endorsed flex-time as an alternative to overtime for working-class families. The rationale behind this is that flex-time gives working parents more time to spend at home with their children. This sounds good, but only in theory. The inherent conflict is that there are families who rely on the income generated by overtime pay simply to make ends meet. Spending time at home is fine, provided you can buy all the necessary provisions and maintain your house. But what good is flex-time for the family which relies upon overtime pay to feed its children?
It is baffling that the Republican Party continues to let the party of abortion and gay marriage steal the crucial vote of union workers: a demographic with strong conservative beliefs like a strong foreign policy, lower taxes, and respect for the family. Regardless of one’s stance on either issue, it is curious that Republicans are practically forcing unionized workers to vote for a party whose platform runs entirely counter to many of their moral values. Does the GOP really want to be known as the party that introduced legislation that would have resulted in many low-income workers losing the overtime benefits they so desperately need? Does the GOP want to be known as the party that held up the passing of, and actually threatened to veto, important homeland security legislation because it included collective bargaining rights for airport screeners? This is not the Republican Party I was drawn to.
Despite one-dimensional, widely accepted stereotypes portraying the GOP as the party of the rich, concern for the lower-middle class was one of the things that drew me to the party in the first place. Tax relief, school choice, crime control policies: these are issues where Republicans have a clear advantage with the working class.
I firmly believe that it is possible to achieve anything in this country as long as one is willing to work hard to succeed. The goals of labor unions are not antithetical to this. There are bad unions, just as there are bad corporations, but the primary objectives of a labor union are to secure jobs, safe working conditions, and reasonable pay and benefits for its members. These are steps necessary for eventual social mobility for the worker and his family. But until Republicans stop shunning and even harming the interests of organized labor, they will continue to allow the Democratic Party to wage class warfare on our society. Republicans need to end this assault on the interests of organized labor and emphasize our shared values. Perhaps both sides will find that there is more common ground than they initially might think.