Now the Real Work Begins
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In the past, organized labor's political action program went into hibernation between elections. But those days are behind us. |
By Gerald W. McEntee
Now that the votes are counted and the 1996 election is history, newspaper columnists and the Sunday morning talk show crowd are falling over themselves to put their spin on last year's campaign.
If you listen to some of them the real story is that organized labor bet the farm on taking back Congress and lost big.
There's only one problem with their analysis: It's dead wrong.
The fact of the matter is that, even though we fell short of restoring pro-worker leadership in the House and the Senate, by almost any measure our efforts this year were a smashing success.
Who could have imagined that, only months after predicting that his GOP would win an extra 20 or more seats in Congress, Newt Gingrich would instead lose 10 seats outright and hold on to a half dozen others by only razor-thin margins?
Even six months ago who would have predicted that, thanks to AFSCME and AFL-CIO leadership, progressives would win back control of the California General Assembly, the Michigan House of Representatives, the Illinois House of Representatives, and the Connecticut State Senate, to name a few.
All told, of the 102 congressional districts, 14 Senate races and two gubernatorial races where AFSCME and the AFL-CIO mounted intensive campaigns, 56 pro-worker candidates won. In fact, despite big business outspending labor by 7-to-1, we were able to defeat no fewer than 18 anti-worker incumbents.
Not bad for a labor movement that some had given up for dead only a year ago!
Would we have preferred to see the House and the Senate led by women and men who care about working families? You bet, and thanks to our efforts this year, achieving that victory in the future is much more likely. Why? Because our goal in 1996 wasn't only to replace anti-union conservatives with pro-labor progressives, it was to give working-class people a strong, new voice in American political life.
After years of being ignored by the media and dismissed by politicians in both parties, labor set out to put workers and workers' issues at the center of the 1996 campaign. And, in that respect, we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.
Thanks to our aggressive advertising-but even more, thanks to your activism-in 1996 candidates running for office at every level were forced to address the issues our families care about: health care, education, jobs, retirement security, fair taxes and strong public services.
Though conservatives pulled out all the stops to attack us as "tax-and-spend liberals" and "labor bosses," tens of millions of voters-union and non-union alike -ignored the right-wing's attacks and instead stood with us to send progressives to the courthouse, the statehouse and the White House.
Now the real work begins.
In the past, organized labor's political action program went into hibernation between elections. But those days are behind us.
If we want to make sure our voice continues to be heard loud and clear by both our friends and our opponents it's up to all of us to stay just as active and involved this year as we were in 1996.
That means mobilizing our co-workers to fight for pro-worker policies in Washington, D.C., the state capitals and in our own communities. It means speaking out in the media to make sure our agenda is understood by our friends and neighbors. It means keeping the heat turned up on all politicians who think they can turn their backs on workers and our families.
And, just as AFSCME led the way in 1996, it's up to us to lead the fight again this year.
By mobilizing as never before, organized labor carved out a powerful new role for workers in American politics. Now it's up to us to stay mobilized if we want to keep it.
