Trump v. Labor

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is on an ominous course.  Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics because he did not like a jobs report.

Steven Greenhouse at The Guardian:

Despite his vow to help coal miners, Trump halted enforcement of a regulation that protects miners from a debilitating, often deadly lung disease. He fired the chair of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), leaving the US’s top labor watchdog without a quorum to protect workers from corporations’ illegal anti-union tactics. Angering labor leaders, Trump stripped one million federal workers of their right to bargain collectively and tore up their union contracts.

...

Trump has hurt construction workers by shutting down major wind turbine projects and ending Biden-era subsidies that encourage the construction of factories that make renewable-energy products. In moves that will harm some of the nation’s most vulnerable workers, the Trump administration has proposed ending minimum wage and overtime protections for 3.7 million home-care and domestic workers. It has also killed a Biden plan to prevent employers from paying disabled workers less than the $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage.

...

Trump has taken numerous steps that will weaken safety protections for workers. He is cutting staffing by 12% at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha). His administration has proposed eliminating a requirement for adequate lighting on construction sites. It is reducing the fines that small businesses pay for violating safety rules. It has proposed blocking the government’s mine-safety district managers from ordering upgrades in mine ventilation and safety. It has slowed action on Biden’s effort to protect workers from high temperatures.

He even trashed paid holidays:

 

Trump v. Unions

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Rebecca Davis O’Brien at NYT:

Federal worker unions have sought over the past two months to lead the resistance to President Trump and his Department of Government Efficiency, filing lawsuits, organizing protests and signing up new members by the thousands.

This week, Mr. Trump struck back with a potentially crippling blow.

In a sweeping executive order denouncing the unions as “hostile” to his agenda, the president cited national security concerns to remove some one million civil servants across more than a dozen agencies from the reach of organized labor, eliminating the unions’ power to represent those workers at the bargaining table or in court.

A lawsuit accompanying the executive order, filed by the administration in federal court in Texas, asks a judge to give the president permission to rescind collective bargaining agreements, citing national security interests and saying the agreements had “hamstrung” executive authority.

Labor leaders vowed on Friday to challenge the Trump actions in court. But, barring a legal intervention, the moves could kneecap federal unions and protections for many civil service employees just as workers brace for a new round of job cuts across the government.

GOP and Labor

In Defying the Odds, we suggest an under-examined reason why Democrats were unexpectedly weak in key industrial states;  union membership was way down.  Our next book examines the 2024 election.

Trump nominated pro-union Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon to labor secretary. Conservatives are unhappy.  Nick Catoggio at The Dispatch:

But a lot of conservative ideological mooring has come unmoored under Trump. Why hasn’t right-wing opinion about unions done so as well?

One reason, I assume, is the role teachers unions played in lobbying to keep schools closed during the pandemic after it became clear that children had little to fear from COVID. Despite politicians bending over backward to prioritize teachers’ safety, from ushering them toward the front of the line for vaccines to appropriating nearly $200 billion for public education to address COVID-related problems, unions encouraged friendly Democratic politicians to extend closures well into 2021. Parents’ outrage at the learning loss their children suffered may have helped reelect Trump; his nominees to fill the public health positions in his Cabinet are all “COVID contrarians,” coincidentally enough.

The human face of union opposition to reopening schools was Randi Weingarten, head of the American Federation of Teachers. She’s become a top-tier political villain in Republican politics because of it—yet there she was on Friday night cheering Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Labor Department. “It is significant that the Pres-elect nominated Rep. Chavez-DeRemer for Labor,” she tweeted. “Her record suggests real support of workers & their right to unionize. I hope it means the Trump admin will actually respect collective bargaining and workers’ voices from Teamsters to teachers.”

The implied warranty in Trump’s Us-and-Them brand of politics is that he’ll use public power to ruthlessly punish the right’s cultural enemies. That Weingarten, the dictionary definition of a tribal enemy, should be gratified by his choice on labor policy feels like a grievous breach of that warranty.

There’s another reason why Chavez-DeRemer might be hard for partisan conservatives to swallow, though. Compared with issues like government spending and foreign interventions, there’s been little ideological work done by populists to “uninstall” the Reaganite conventional wisdom on unions...

A lot of political energy has been spent over the last few years smuggling those ideas into mainstream right-wing thought. But comparatively little has been devoted to presenting organized labor as beneficial to the economy or useful to the working joes who voted for Trump on November 5.

That means unions are still “Democrat-coded.” The old Reaganite software on that topic is still running.

Janice Fine and Benjamin Schlesinger  at Boston Review:

In the blame game that followed Harris’s loss, union leadership has been clear: you can’t put this on us. They are only partly right. According to both public exit polling and internal union surveys, the labor movement came through and a large majority of union members voted for Harris. While some polls had Biden tied with Trump among union members before he dropped out, early returns in some battleground states showed a commanding twenty-point margin for Harris. In every swing state, UNITE HERE and the AFL-CIO’s field program made personal contact with millions of their members. Organizers persuaded tens of thousands of voters to side with their economic interests and reward the administration that had done so much for them with another term. That spadework is what labor has traditionally been good at. It’s entirely possible that unions’ internal organizing efforts saved Senate seats in Nevada, Wisconsin, and Michigan along with overperforming in down-ballot legislative races in Pennsylvania.

The Biden-Harris administration saw in unions what unions would like to see in themselves: a broad and powerful organization of the working class that could reshape American society and partner with them to end the neoliberal era. The problem with that vision is that it isn’t true. When only 6 percent of private-sector workers belong to unions, unions are no longer a legitimate stand-in for the working class.Most working-class Americans have no experience with unions in their daily lives.

Very Good Economic News

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the politics of economic policy.  Objective indicators are doing great. Perceptions may be catching up.

JUST IN: A strong jobs report. The US economy added 254,000 jobs in September. That’s way above expectations and a nice bounce from 159,000 in August. (Both July & August revised up)

Unemployment rate: 4.1%. (Down from 4.2% in August)

Wages: +4% in past year (vs. 2.5%… pic.twitter.com/lKiH8SWQSi

— Heather Long (@byHeatherLong) October 4, 2024

This level of annualized employment growth would historically be associated with a ~2% national win for the incumbent party (a small improvement for Harris, as last months data would have suggested a 1.8% incumbent win) https://t.co/iuk38gOKw8 pic.twitter.com/4NUx39fCnn

— Lenny Bronner (@lennybronner) October 4, 2024

BREAKING: The union representing 45,000 striking U.S. dockworkers at East and Gulf coast ports has reached a deal to suspend their strike until Jan. 15 to provide time to negotiate a new contract, a person briefed on the matter says. https://t.co/evnfIJsyJW

— The Associated Press (@AP) October 3, 2024

Political Derailment, Averted

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses state and congressional elections.   A railroad strike would have hurt Democrats this fall by disrupting supply chains.  But...

 Jim Tankersly at NYT:

Freight rail companies and unions representing tens of thousands of workers reached a tentative agreement to avoid what would have been an economically damaging strike, after all-night talks brokered by Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh, President Biden said early Thursday morning.

The agreement now heads to union members for a ratification vote, which is a standard procedure in labor talks. While the vote is tallied, workers have agreed not to strike.

The talks brokered by Mr. Walsh began Wednesday morning and lasted 20 hours. Mr. Biden called in around 9 p.m. Wednesday, a person familiar with the talks said, and he hailed the deal on Thursday in a long statement.

Trump v. Labor

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.   The update  -- just published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

I’ve done more for Firefighters than this dues sucking union will ever do, and I get paid ZERO! https://t.co/Tw0qwTiUD6

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 1, 2019

Not exactly the worker's friend.

At WP, Joshua Partlow and David A. Fahrenthold report that Trump exploited his undocumented workers Trump National Golf Club Westchester.

In interviews, six former Trump workers told The Washington Post that they felt systematically cheated because they were undocumented. Some told The Post about being denied promotions, vacation days and health insurance, which were offered to legal employees. The same pattern of unpaid labor was also described by a former manager.

Others recounted practices that could violate labor laws. Two told The Post that they had been required to perform unpaid side work. Two others said managers made them work 60-hour weeks without paying them overtime.

Claudia Uceda at Univision:

The number of Hispanic immigrants who claim to have worked without legal documents for the Trump Organization continues to grow.

Univision News interviewed seven undocumented employees who claim to have worked producing Trump wine in the state of Virginia, putting in long hours from sunrise to sunset, without overtime pay.

"I've been here for six or five years,'' said one of the workers who claims he was hired after presenting false documents that were not verified.

The immigrant, who asked not to be identified to avoid reprisals, took Univision on a tour of the vineyard, and proudly showed the field where he works every day.

Labor Day Post: Union Density, Right to Work, and Elections

In Defying the Odds, we suggest an under-examined reason why Democrats were unexpectedly weak in key industrial states;  union membership was way down.

At the high point of their influence many years ago, they [labor unions] supplied the people who worked the phones, stuffed the envelopes and walked the precincts on behalf of the Democrats.  In some states, they still were a significant force, but overall, they were on the wane. Between 1983 and 2015, union membership as a share of employed workers plunged by almost half, from 20.1 percent to 11.1 percent.   Not coincidentally, the drop-off was steepest in five industrial states that voted Republican in the 2016 presidential race 

 Percentage Change in Union Density, Selected States, 1983-2015

                                    1983                2015                Change

Wisconsin                    24.2                 08.4                -15.8

Michigan                     30.8                 15.3                 -15.5

Indiana                        25.2                 10.1                 -15.1

Pennsylvania               27.7                 13.4                 -14.3

Ohio                             25.3                 12.4                 -12.9

Source: Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson, “State Union Membership Density 1964-2015,” http://unionstats.gsu.edu/State_Union_Membership_Density_1964-2015.xlsx; Barry T. Hirsch, David A. Macpherson, and Wayne G. Vroman, “Estimates of Union Density by State,” Monthly Labor Review 124, No. 7, July 2001, http://unionstats.gsu.edu/MLR_7-01_StateUnionDensity.pdf

A 2018 APSA paper looks at a related topic and its findings seem consistent with our observation. See "Demobilizing Democrats and Labor Unions: Political Effects of Right to Work Laws," by James Feigenbaum, Alexander Warren Hertel-Fernandez, and Vanessa Williamson.  The abstract:

Labor unions play a central role in the Democratic party coalition, providing candidates with voters, volunteers, and contributions and lobbying government. Has the recent decline of organized labor hurt Democrats? We use the enactment of right-to-work laws—which weaken unions by removing agency shop protections—to estimate the effect of unions on politics from 1980 to 2016. Comparing counties on either side of a state and right-to-work border to causally identify the effects of the state laws, we find right-to-work laws reduce Democratic presidential vote shares by 4 to 6 percentage points. We find similar effects in US Senate, US House, and gubernatorial races, as well as state legislative control. Turnout is also 2 to 3 percentage points lower in right-to-work counties after those laws pass. We next explore mechanisms behind these effects, finding that right-to-work laws dampen organized labor campaign contributions to Democrats and that likely Democratic voters are less likely to be contacted to vote in right-to-work states. The weakening of unions also has large downstream effects both on who runs for office and state legislative policy. Fewer working class candidates serve in state legislatures and Congress and state policy moves in a more conservative direction following the passage of right-to-work laws.

They identify a key mechanism by which such laws affect turnout.

We find that RTW laws are associated with a reduction in the probability that non-professional workers—but not professional workers—report get-out-the-vote contact during the campaign. Table 4 presents the results of this analysis, with a binary indicator for GOTV contact during the last campaign as the outcome. In the model with individual controls, we find that RTW laws reduce the probability that a non-professional worker reported GOTV contact by 11 percentage points but had no discernible effect on professional and managerial workers

They mention something that we discuss in the book, namely that deliberate political strategy is at work.

Aside from the theoretical contributions of the paper, our results also have bearing on current debates in U.S. politics. The anti-tax political activist Grover Norquist recently declared that while President Donald J. Trump may be historically unpopular, the GOP could still “win big” in 2020.41 The secret to the Republican party’s long-term success, Norquist argued, involved state level initiatives to weaken the power of labor unions. As Norquist explained it, if union reforms cutting the power of labor unions to recruit and retain members—like RTW laws—“are enacted in a dozen more states, the modern Democratic Party will cease to be a competitive power in American politics.” A weaker labor movement, Norquist reasoned, would not just have economic consequences. It would also have significant political repercussions, meaning that Democrats would
have substantially less of a grassroots presence on the ground during elections and less money to invest in politics

Liberal Laundromats

In Defying the Odds, we discuss congressional elections as well as the presidential race.

Ashley Balcerzak, "How Democrats Use Dark Money," Center for Public Integrity, February 20, 2018.  Democrats, like Republicans, take advantage of campaign finance loopholes.  Highway 31, a Democratic super PAC backing Doug Jones, was able to delay reporting of big donors by taking pre-election pledges for money that would not arrive until after (when it became reportable).  It also ran dark money through liberal laundromats:

It’s a money trail worthy of a Rube Goldberg cartoon. Highway 31 gets money from super PAC Priorities USA Action, which gets some money from super PAC House Majority PAC, which gets money from super PAC Working for Working Americans, which gets all its money from the union United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, which is funded by more than 400,000 dues-paying members whose names aren’t publicly disclosed. Several other “dark money” daisy chains abound.

Why Did Trump Carry the Rustbelt? One Reason: Union Membership Had Dropped

In Defying the Odds, we suggest an under-examined reason why Democrats were unexpectedly weak in key industrial states;  union membership was way down.

At the high point of their influence many years ago, they [labor unions] supplied the people who worked the phones, stuffed the envelopes and walked the precincts on behalf of the Democrats.  In some states, they still were a significant force, but overall, they were on the wane. Between 1983 and 2015, union membership as a share of employed workers plunged by almost half, from 20.1 percent to 11.1 percent.   Not coincidentally, the drop-off was steepest in five industrial states that voted Republican in the 2016 presidential race 

 Percentage Change in Union Density, Selected States, 1983-2015

                                    1983                2015                Change

Wisconsin                    24.2                 08.4                -15.8

Michigan                     30.8                 15.3                 -15.5

Indiana                        25.2                 10.1                 -15.1

Pennsylvania               27.7                 13.4                 -14.3

Ohio                             25.3                 12.4                 -12.9

Source: Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson, “State Union Membership Density 1964-2015,” http://unionstats.gsu.edu/State_Union_Membership_Density_1964-2015.xlsx; Barry T. Hirsch, David A. Macpherson, and Wayne G. Vroman, “Estimates of Union Density by State,” Monthly Labor Review 124, No. 7, July 2001, http://unionstats.gsu.edu/MLR_7-01_StateUnionDensity.pdf

Exploiting GOP Gains in the States

At The New York Times, Alexander Burns and Mitch Smith report that Republicans are moving fast to exploit their gains in state government.

Acting fastest at the moment, though, are four states where Republicans won total control of the government only in November. In addition to Kentucky, Missouri and New Hampshire became one-party states with the election of Republican governors, and Republicans in Iowa snatched away the State Senate, where Democrats had held their last grip on power.

In all four states, Republicans are racing to strip back the influence of labor unions, a key Democratic constituency.

In Missouri, where union membership has waned, Gov. Eric Greitens, a telegenic former member of the Navy SEALs, signed a “right to work” bill into law on Monday, denying unions the power to require that workers at companies they represent pay dues or their equivalent as a condition of employment. In Kentucky, Gov. Matt Bevin signed a similar measure in January, along with the repeal of a law that kept wages high on public construction projects. And in New Hampshire, State Senator Jeb Bradley, the Republican majority leader, said so-called right-to-work legislation was a top priority.

In Iowa, Republican leaders announced this past week that they would pursue sweeping changes to the collective bargaining rights of public employees. State Senator Bill Dix, the new Republican majority leader, said his party had campaigned on such changes — which would cut deeply into unions’ negotiating power — and intended to make good on its commitments. He said Republicans would also seek to change state laws governing health care and to enshrine in the State Constitution the right to bear arms.

Union Decline and the Election

At The Wall Street Journal, Kyle Jenkins talks to Tracie Sharp of the conservative State Policy Network:

Anyone wondering whether an advantage in the states truly matters should look at this year’s Electoral College map. In Wisconsin, union membership is down 133,000 since 2010, the year before Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10 overhaul passed. Donald Trump’s margin of victory there? Less than 30,000. In Michigan, public-union membership is down 34,000 since 2012, the year before Gov. Rick Snyder’s right-to-work law kicked in. Mr. Trump’s margin? Only 11,000.

Ms. Sharp says she had always felt these two states were only “thinly blue,” and that the GOP has been put on better footing by the unions’ slide. “When you chip away at one of the power sources that also does a lot of get-out-the-vote,” she says, “I think that helps—for sure.”

It is not that former union members suddenly stopped voting Democratic.  Rather, they were no longer part of union mobilization and fundraising efforts.  The weakening of those efforts probably hurt Democrats in the industrial states.

Bad Times for Workers, Especially Those Without College

Jeanna Smialek writes at Bloomberg:

Income inequality seems to have played a role in Britain's June 23 vote to leave the European Union, a move seen as a populist reaction against immigration, based on new research from Brussels-based Bruegel. In the U.S., Republican Donald Trump has tapped into frustrations about lower-quality jobs with stagnating wages – and new research from White House economists shows why his rallying cry might hold so much appeal.

From the Council of Economic Advisers:

In September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that in 2015, the typical household saw its income grow by $2,800, or 5.2 percent, the fastest rate on record. Over the course of this business cycle, average annual wage growth has been higher than any business cycle since the early 1970s. This is real progress toward higher incomes for working Americans—a central goal of many of the policy initiatives the Obama Administration has undertaken since 2009.

But while these gains are a step in the right direction, more work remains to fully address long-term challenges of slow wage growth and rising inequality. Over the past several decades, only the highest earners have seen steady wage gains; for most workers, wage growth has been sluggish and has failed to keep pace with gains in productivity (CEA 2015, Ch. 3). Though the slowdown in wage growth is partly due to a slowdown in productivity growth since the 1970s, the share of income accruing to labor has also been falling.

Over the past 15 years, while profits rose, the decline in labor’s share of national income accelerated, reaching its lowest level ever since World War II. And though this trend has begun to show signs of reversal since mid-2014, labor’s share of income is well below the 2000 year level (Figure 1).

 At the same time, labor income itself has become increasingly unequally divided. Researchers have focused on the divergence between worker skills and employer needs—a challenge brought about by technological change and a trend in educational investments that, while rising, has not kept pace with demand, which has risen even faster (Autor 2014; Katz and Murphy 1992; Goldin and Katz 2007). Others have examined more institutional hypotheses, including the erosion of the minimum wage (Autor, Manning, and Smith 2015), the decline of unionization (Card 2001), and changes in the structure of employment (Weil 2014).

The GOP's Flexibility Advantage in State Races

At Vox, Matthew Yglesias makes a perceptive point that runs against conventional wisdom:

Liberals accustomed to chuckling over the ideological rigor of the House GOP caucus won't want to hear this, but one of the foundations of the GOP's broad national success is a reasonable degree of ideological flexibility.

Essentially every state on the map contains overlapping circles of rich people who don't want to pay taxes and business owners who don't want to comply with labor, public health, and environmental regulations. In states like Texas or South Carolina, where this agenda nicely complements a robust social conservatism, the GOP offers that up and wins with it. But in a Maryland or a New Jersey, the party of business manages to throw up candidates who either lack hard-edged socially conservative views or else successfully downplay them as irrelevant in the context of blue-state governance.

Democrats, of course, are conceptually aware of the possibility of nominating unusually conservative candidates to run in unusually conservative states. But there is a fundamental mismatch. No US state is so left-wing as to have created an environment in which business interests are economically or politically irrelevant. Vermont is not North Korea, in other words.

But there are many states in which labor unions are neither large nor powerful and non-labor national progressive donor networks are inherently populated by relatively affluent people who tend to be emotionally driven by progressive commitments on social or environmental issues. This is why an impassioned defense of the legality of late-term abortions could make Wendy Davis a viral sensation, a national media star, and someone capable of activating the kind of donor and volunteer networks needed to mount a statewide campaign. Unfortunately for Democrats, however, this is precisely the wrong issue profile to try to win statewide elections in conservative states.

Obama Bungles on Trade

On Friday, the president lost a big trade vote in the House, mainly because Democrats broke with him. Eric Bradner and Deirdre Walsh report at CNN:

The President attended a 9:30 a.m. gathering of House Democrats, making his case after several high-level officials -- including Labor Secretary Tom Perez and White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough -- made their cases in the days leading up to the vote.
As he left the meeting, Obama said, "I don't think you ever nail anything down around here. It's always moving."

Democrats who attended said they weren't swayed and that the President's outreach came too late.

"The President tried to both guilt people and impugn their integrity. I was insulted," Rep. Peter Defazio, D-Oregon, told reporters after the meeting.

One House Democrat told CNN on the condition of anonymity that in Friday's meeting, Obama "was fine until he turned it at the end and became indignant and alienated some folks. Bottom line, he may have swayed some Ds to vote yes, but Pelosi sealed the deal to vote no."

Another House Democrat said Obama's last-minute lobbying effort "absolutely" hurt the bill's chances.

"Democrats believe they often are taken granted and not appreciated," this House Democrat said. "There was a very strong concern about the lost jobs and growing income inequality. Unions are the last line of defense. A number of reporters have asked whether Democrats felt threatened by the unions. Most told me that they wanted to do nothing to further weaken unions."

Added this member of Congress, pointedly: "Ms. Clinton should take notice."

Politico offers some further details:

It was a dramatic gesture, the kind that Obama has avoided for years. He’s had little success in wooing members of Congress from either party over the years, and his allies dismissed such efforts as made-for-TV drama.

But by Friday morning, there was the president, walking into a closed-door meeting in the Capitol Visitors Center to try to rally House Democrats. Pelosi was by his side. Inside, he implored lawmakers to “play it straight” on the vote.

“We’re not the other party, we’re not the tea party,” Obama said, according to sources in the room. He took no questions, Pelosi said nothing and the pair left the room together.
Once Obama left, Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) told fellow Democrats that he “was offended by what the president said” in suggesting TAA opponents weren’t playing it straight. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) and others echoed Ellison.

Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), a top trade supporter, said his sister and other relatives were union members, yet he would still support the package.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) broke into tears. She told Democrats how close she was to Obama.

Then she went to the House floor and voted “no.”

Edgy Kashkari Ad

Carla Marinucci reports at The San Francisco Chronicle:

With a new TV ad that depicts a drowning boy, Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari aims to make the case that Gov. Jerry Brown has “betrayed” California children.

The 30-second spot, called “Betrayal,” will start airing Tuesday in every media market in the state.

It shows a young boy drowning in a swimming pool. “When kids in failing schools begged Jerry Brown to save them, he betrayed them,” says the caption in the spot, as the child struggles underwater.

The ad shows Kashkari pulling the boy to safety and addressing the camera:

“I’m running for governor because every kid, in every neighborhood, deserves a good education and a chance for a better life. Jerry Brown betrayed our kids to protect his donors.”

Kashkari’s ad is playing off the recent Vergara v. California court decision, in which a Los Angeles judge found that the state’s system of teacher tenure violates the constitutional rights of children in poorer school districts by making it all but impossible to fire incompetent instructors.

Kashkari v. Brown and CTA

Seema Mehta reports at The Los Angeles Times:

A day before Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown and GOP rival Neel Kashkari face off in their only debate, the Republican on Wednesday attacked the incumbent over his longtime ties to the state’s most powerful union, the California Teachers Assn.

The move foreshadows what is expected to be Kashkari’s line of attack at an event in which the struggling candidate needs to make a mark to change the dynamics of a race strongly weighted in favor of Brown.

“Jerry Brown has revealed where his loyalties lie,” Kashkari says in an eight-minute Web video about the state’s schools and CTA. “Not with the civil rights of poor kids, [but] with the union bosses that have been funding his political career for 40 years.”

Unions and City Elections

The sagacious Willie Brown, former California Assembly speaker and San Francisco mayor, writes at The San Francisco Chronicle:

The real news in the San Diego mayoral race isn't that a Republican won, but that the candidate backed by public-employee unions lost.

That is a real shift in California politics. And it's the second time it's happened in a big-city mayoral race in less than a year.

In San Diego on Tuesday, City Councilman Kevin Faulconer, a middle-of-the-road Republican, knocked the stuffing out of the union-backed Democrat, Councilman David Alvarez.

And he did it in part by hammering on the big union money behind Alvarez, much of which came from out of town.

In some ways it was a replay of the Los Angeles mayoral race last year, when labor's heavy backing of Wendy Greuel ultimately proved to be a liability for her in her race against Eric Garcetti.

It might be time for the public-employee unions to go on a retreat and rethink both their tactics and their goals. The politicians they're backing aren't exactly winning points by running on platforms of allowing transit strikes and maintaining the status quo on public pensions.

If labor's candidates can lose in heavily Democratic Los Angeles and in San Diego, they can lose here, too.

P.S. I was a big admirer of David Alvarez's- and a contributor to his campaign as well.

The Minimum Wage as an Issue

At The New York Times, Jonathan Martin and Michael Shear report:

Democratic Party leaders, bruised by months of attacks on the new health care program, have found an issue they believe can lift their fortunes both locally and nationally in 2014: an increase in the minimum wage.

The effort to take advantage of growing populism among voters in both parties is being coordinated by officials from the White House, labor unions and liberal advocacy groups.

In a series of strategy meetings and conference calls among them in recent weeks, they have focused on two levels: an effort to raise the federal minimum wage, which will be pushed by President Obama and congressional leaders, and a campaign to place state-level minimum wage proposals on the ballot in states with hotly contested congressional races.

With polls showing widespread support for an increase in the $7.25-per-hour federal minimum wage among both Republican and Democratic voters, top Democrats see not only a wedge issue that they hope will place Republican candidates in a difficult position, but also a tool with which to enlarge the electorate in a nonpresidential election, when turnout among minorities and youths typically drops off.

...
Of course, for the overall strategy to work for the Democrats they need Republicans to oppose an increase, and history suggests that is not a given.

At the meeting this month in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Mr. [Gene] Sperling, who was an adviser in President Bill Clinton’s White House, recalled that in the election year of 1996 Republican leaders decided that fighting a minimum-wage increase was not worth the political trouble and let a bill raising the rate pass after inserting some provisions helping small businesses. 

In 2012, only 4.7 percent of all hourly paid workers made the minimum wage.  Even though voters express support for raising the minimum wage, its direct impact on the electorate is very small.  Health care, by contrast, does affect the electorate in a very direct way.

Unions & GOP Primaries

Scott Bland reports at National Journal:

The Republican Main Street Partnership has emerged as an outspoken, deep-pocketed player in pro-business GOP plans to beat back tea party challengers next year. But the group's new super PAC has an unexpected source for its seed money: labor unions.

The super PAC, called Defending Main Street, has not yet submitted a major donor disclosure to the Federal Election Commission. But documents filed by other groups show that two labor organizations, the International Union of Operating Engineers and the Laborers' International Union of North America, directed a combined $400,000 to the Republican group in September and October.

Main Street says it has raised roughly $2 million total between its super PAC and an affiliated non-profit group so far – and that means labor has supplied at least 20 percent of those funds.
For the unions, this is not a surprising move. While both labor groups direct most of their millions to Democrats, they have consistently given smaller amounts to friendly Republicans.

Political Money in California

Steve Harmon writes at The San Jose Mercury News that California Democrats owe the unions, big-time:

Labor's heavy lift on two campaigns paid big dividends last fall.

While the wealthy Munger siblings famously poured a combined $83 million into losing causes, labor unions flexed their financial muscle to capture two campaigns with about the same amount -- $85 million, according to the final round of the 2012 campaign finance reports, which were released late Thursday.

Labor went all in, spending $65 million to defeat Proposition 32, which would have stripped their political clout by outlawing the collection of union dues for political campaigns. That money enabled unions to put together a field program with volunteers blanketing the state, creating what union leaders say was a ripple effect that led to the stunning victory by Gov. Jerry Brown's tax-hike measure, Proposition 30.

Labor added more than $20 million to the Proposition 30 campaign and claim that the fervor behind those two campaigns helped Democrats capture super majorities in the Senate and Assembly.

In California, state legislative campaigns costs as much as statewide campaigns in much of the country. The Riverside Press-Enterprise reports:

Last year’s campaign in Riverside County’s 31st Senate District consumed more than $9 million, making it the deepest political money pit of any California legislative contest in 2012, final reports show.

The second-most expensive legislative race last year, the Sacramento-area 8th Assembly District, racked up almost $8.4 million in total spending. Right behind it was the campaign in the Stockton-to-Modesto 5th Senate District, which burned through more than $8.1 million, according to end of-year campaign finance statements filed this week.

Lawmakers earn a base salary of $90,526, plus living expenses when the Legislature is in session.

“I had no idea it was going to cost as much as it did,” said state Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, a Riverside attorney and first-time candidate who survived a bruising June primary campaign and went on to defeat Republican Jeff Miller, a state assemblyman, in the 31st. The seat includes Corona, Riverside, Moreno Valley and Perris.