With both sides counting on dramatic turnout, Tom Barrett’s campaign is charging Scott Walker supporters with dirty tricks. In an email sent to supporters last night, Barrett for Wisconsin finance director Mary Urbina-McCarthy wrote, “Reports coming into our call center have confirmed that Walker’s allies just launched a massive wave of voter suppression calls to recall petition signers.” According to Urbina-McCarthy, the message of the calls was: “If you signed the recall petition, your job is done and you don’t need to vote on Tuesday.”
Author Archives: Josh Eidelson
WISCONSIN’S RESENTMENT FACTOR
MADISON, Wis. — If Scott Walker survives tomorrow’s election, there will be plenty of reasons. Many people will point to his huge cash advantage, for good reason. But no factor will have been more important than the decades of decline in U.S. union membership.
“Unions had their place,” a woman named Jerri told me soon after I arrived in Wisconsin last week. “They did their part back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and then they got too big, and are abusing their power.” Jerri and her husband, Tim (both declined to give last names), were eating at a bar in Wauwatosa, the purple Milwaukee suburb that’s home to Scott Walker. They both work in sales: She’s in retail at the mall; he’s in wholesale, selling caskets. Tim said Walker’s union “reforms” were necessary because local politicians had been “looking out for the union” instead of “people like me.” He said unions are for people who don’t “feel they should have to work very hard.” Jerri complained that unions “are sucking off my teat.” Public workers’ benefits, she said, “should be the same as anybody in any kind of private job.”
SURVEY SHOWS PROGRESS AND PITFALLS FOR NEW JERSEY CHILD CARE UNION
Last month, Rutgers University released a report surveying New Jersey home-based caregivers on their working conditions, their career aspirations, and their views of their still-young union. The survey aimed to offer a snapshot of the workforce five years after unionization. The responses indicate both progress and pitfalls.
The report, Giving Voice to New Jersey’s Caregivers: The Union Experiences of Home-Based Child Care Providers, was published by Rutgers’ Center for Women and Work (CWW). It was authored by Widener University Assistant Professor Linda Houser, CWW research associate Elizabeth Nisbet, and CWW’s Director of Work and Family Programs, Karen White. White serves on the executive board of the Union of Rutgers Administrators, an American Federation of Teachers Affiiate. The report received funding from the pro-union American Rights at Work Education Fund.
CAN UNIONS FIGHT SUPER PACS?
No one was surprised this winter when the AFL-CIO and its major unions endorsed President Obama’s reelection. Despite decades of enrollment decline, the AFL-CIO remains the largest membership organization in progressive politics, and it is a much relied-upon ally in Democratic election campaigns. But faced with a post-Citizens United landscape and armed with hard-fought lessons, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is pledging a “big change” in how the federation does politics.
“Before, we used to build everybody else’s structure,” says Trumka, “and now, we’re going to build our own structure.” He says to expect three changes: more focus on door-to-door organizing rather than TV ads; more funds toward building a permanent, independent political infrastructure and less towards candidates’ coffers; and more outreach beyond union households.
LABOR-BACKED PARTY OUSTS DEMOCRAT WITH KOCH AND AFL-CIO BACKING
In Oregon’s May 15 primary, progressive challenger Jeff Reardon scored a two-to-one victory over Mike Schaufler, a five-term Oregon Assembly Democrat who appeared safe just months before his defeat. Reardon’s victory relied on support from the labor-backed Working Families Party, in coalition with environmentalists, MoveOn, and unions—though the state AFL-CIO, and some of its affiliates, stuck with the incumbent.
The Working Families Party, a progressive, labor-backed third party, hails Reardon’s victory as a national model. “Winning a race like this,” says WFP State Director Steve Hughes, “in the face of someone that’s funded by the lobbyists as he was, sends a message that we can hold these people accountable.”
ON THE RICK SMITH SHOW: POLITICIANS V. TEACHERS BARGAINING
Rick Smith had me back on his show Friday to discuss attacks on teachers’ (and voters’) role in shaping school conditions, and the Democratic Party’s muddled stance on teachers’ collective bargaining. You can hear the audio here (starting about 16 minutes in).
AMERICAN WORKERS: SHACKLED TO LABOR LAW
From this month’s issue of In These Times:
Republicans hate the National Labor Relations Board. But they’re not the only ones. In speeches to workers and testimony in Congress in the ’80s and ’90s, then-AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland repeatedly declared that union members would be better served by “the law of the jungle.” Some union presidents agreed, including Richard Trumka, who now heads the AFL-CIO. In 1987, Trumka called for abolishing both the law’s “provisions that hamstring labor” and “the affirmative protections of labor that it promises but does not deliver.”
In other words, it’s not just Mitt Romney who argues the National Labor Relations Board – which interprets and enforces labor law – does more harm than good.
Read it here – or better yet, pick up a copy!
ON RING OF FIRE: THE COLD FEET CAUCUS
Last week, Sam Seder had me on Ring of Fire radio to talk about my Salon piece on how Wisconsin’s uprising has led some anti-union legislators in other state to tread more carefully. Subscribers can listen to the segment here. (Mark Thompson also had me his show Make It Plain to discuss the article; I’ll post that audio if it becomes available)
IN CONTRACT VOTE, AMERICAN AIRLINES WORKERS SPLIT OVER BANKRUPTCY CONCESSIONS
In a split decision on the lesser of perceived evils, five bargaining units of American Airlines’ largest union voted to accept management’s final offer on concessions, while two voted to reject it. Members of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) voted via phone and Internet beginning last week, and the results were announced on Tuesday. The vote took place against the backdrop of a bankruptcy union leaders opposed, a legal process they distrust and a potential merger they’ve endorsed.
“We’re at the mercy of the court,” Tulsa machinist Joe McGill, whose unit voted against the deal, told the Associated Press Tuesday. “I hope we can survive this, keep the maintenance base open and functioning, and maybe start to rebuild.”
EXCLUSIVE: NEW VIDEO COULD DAMAGE WALKER
Does Scott Walker want to make Wisconsin a right-to-work state? He says no. But his allies are gunning for it. In a new video, the speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly says his caucus wanted to pass a right-to-work bill last year. The video, shot on March 27 of this year by a Democratic Party tracker, who provided the footage to Salon, captures Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald talking at a bar with a reporter from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.
WASTE COMPANY LOCKS OUT TEAMSTERS IN BID TO ELIMINATE PENSIONS
At 9 p.m. Tuesday night, the country’s second-largest waste disposal company locked 79 workers out of their jobs. The day before, Republic Services/Allied Waste gave the Evansville, Ind., workers an ultimatum: accept management’s “last, best and final” offer, or be locked out of work. The union, Teamsters Local 215, blames the lockout on management’s insistence on permanently eliminating workers’ pensions.
“It’s a kind of extraordinary move in labor relations to lock workers out unilaterally,” says Louis Malizia, assistant director of the Teamsters Capital Strategies Department. “So there could be a return to work—the company need only open the gates and then let workers continue to work while they try to resolve issues at the bargaining table.”
“I’M NOT SCOTT WALKER”
Labor has taken a beating. While private companies squeeze and lock out workers, resurgent right-wingers have pushed anti-union bills in statehouses around the country. But after a seemingly relentless national assault provoked dramatic pushback in Wisconsin and elsewhere, some Republicans are … relenting.
Josh Eidelson 