Bonior's Group Launches TV Ad Campaign Pushing Labor's Agenda
Here's a look at the new ad I reported on yesterday that David Bonior's pro-labor group is launching nationally -- it's a fun spot that's pushing the new government to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, one of labor's top agenda items:
It's the first advocacy ad greeting the new order in D.C. Bonior's group, which is called American Rights at Work, tells me that the spot will air for three weeks on national cable -- CNN, MSNBC, and CNN Headline News -- making this something of a significant buy.
Separately, as also noted here, some of the nation's top labor leaders gathered in DC yesterday to discuss a new campaign they're launching to secure passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to unionize in various ways. At the meeting, which was attended by top officials from the AFL-CIO and AFSCME, among others, the labor bigs talked about launching a huge nationwide field operation and the formation of a media fund to possibly go up on the air to push for the measure.
It's worth noting that labor may in some ways play a different role this time than they did during the Clinton years. The big unions are hoping for a role more akin to the one they played during the campaign, staking out a populist left flank for the administration and helping push its evolving agenda.
In other words, the big unions are envisioning more of a cooperative role with the administration than during the Clinton years, when the battles over NAFTA set up more of a confrontational situation. The more cooperative spirit is born largely of a sobering sense of just how big an opportunity the left and Dems have on their hands, and a desire not to blow it.
Let's hope it goes down as described here. Labor and the Obama Administration are going to need each other, bigtime. A good working relationship- involving some polite but determined leftward nudging of Obama- is crucial to getting anything remotely progressive done.
November 14, 2008 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
exactly right. a lot riding on relations here
November 14, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Haha. That's a great ad.
I would assume Obama isn't going to forget the Unions and Labor forces that helped him out. His support may not come directly but indirectly by ensuring other countries raise their standards of employees. The Trade commissions will need to get on the ball and hold countries accountable for substandard employee environments, both physical and financial. This will allow for the U.S. work force to be competitive again. It's not going to be an overnight success either and it won't be easy. There are thousands of U.S. Govn't employees that are going to have to be somehow motivated to enforce these trading standards with foreign nations.
At least that's how I see this problem being addressed.
November 14, 2008 10:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is exactly right. Unions will be supported by an Obama administration, but only insofar as his vision for the country happens to intersect with their overall goals for increased equality of labor versus capital.
We can agree the problems exist, see a need to be addressed now and still disagree that the union's solutions offer the best chance of success. I can think of a dozen ways to fix our problems that don't involve increased union membership as the starting point.
November 14, 2008 10:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think this is a bad way to go and explain why here.
A sales pitch to a country that has always been mostly non-union is not the right way to achieve the very worthy goal of worker equality and a more just labor environment. It is a waste of time and resources that could be better spent supporting Barack's health care plan or his certain push for a living wage.
If unions are ever successful in their stated aims, then extinction is their only destiny unless they change their future goals. We need to solve inequality, not beef up the unions to fight some sort of extended battle with business and government.
Sorry. I don't buy the union pitch on this one, despite coming from a union background.
November 14, 2008 10:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
I also think this is a bad way to go, but for a different reason than that articulated by jason.
What was learned from the campaign? That grassroots efforts were very powerful. That the Obama tactic of targeting ads below the radar was effective as well. If big labor wants to be involved, how about mobilizing members first, rather than trying to sway nationwide opinions and/or gathering attention from the political media?
Furthermore, is it possible that Bonior et al may be tying Obama's hands in a sense? If labor and the Obama Administration work to accomplish something before the grassroots support is there, will Obama be painted as owing labor something? And could that make his Administration reluctant?
November 14, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
"...how about mobilizing members first, rather than trying to sway nationwide opinions and/or gathering attention from the political media?"
Seems to me like labor did some *serious* mobilizing 10 days ago.
Personally, as a union member myself, I see every day the value the labor unions continue to bring in maintaining some semblance of a middle class in the country. Without them, there wouldn't be one.
I say give labor *everything* it wants. Not just for the voters, but because those voters need to see that their interests--both political and socio-economic--are going to be represented after 8 years (some might argue many more than that) in the wilderness.
November 14, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
They did mobilize, in a major way, 10 days ago. My point is that the support for this should start ground up, topped off by the ad, rather than starting with the ad, and working down (as described).
Labor needs all the help it can get. It's been demonized in the past, and will continue to be demonized (who's going to get partial blame for the meltdown in Detroit? The union, because of the "entitlement" stuff that is part of their collective bargaining agreement). Get labor energized, then start the public relations effort, then start asking for cooperation from the Obama campaign.
I'm not against what labor is trying to do; I just don't agree with the method they've designed.
November 14, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Getting things moving from the bottom up? Wow, it really is a new day.
November 14, 2008 11:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think this should be anywhere near the top of Obama's agenda. I'm confident it will be passed, but it will make Obama look like a tool of labor.
Why aren't we running these ads about Health Care?
I'm very worried that Obama is putting Health Care on the back burner and we should be organizing to make sure he follows through.
November 14, 2008 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's a perfect example of why you need labor more than you think you do. Health care is a major labor issue and there's no force better equipped to push for it.
More generally, building a fairer, more progressive society CANNOT happen without strengthening the unions (whose decline has a lot to do with the increasing unfairness of our economy). Which is why card check should NOT be a back-burner issue for progressives. On the contrary, it's a critical priority.
November 14, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. And I guess I see the situation this way: the mobilization of labor voters 10 days ago *WAS* the beginnings of the grass roots. The top-down strategy has already begun.
What will lift up union workers--and inarguably everyone else in this country--from an economic standpoint more than anything else?
Health care.
The unions and their "boots on the ground" need Obama's administration to get their economic needs addressed--and health care is the big one, for many reasons. Conversely, Obama needs the unions if anything's going to be done.
This ad is a way to start that conversation--AND prep all those bobbleheads in the media who think nothing's going to happen or that health care is some kind of boondoggle. You get the union *workers* on board, and it WILL happen.
November 14, 2008 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
You get the union workers to start pestering their Congress critters. Get them doing that in the same numbers that were "mobilized" last week.
Then you break out the ad.
Now it looks like labor management is doing the "mobilizing", not the rank and file.
November 14, 2008 12:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Unions have never been much more than ten percent of the modern workforce and only encompassed 30 percent or so during their heyday. Many non-union industries, representing the vast majority of American workers, enjoy great benefits and high wages. I hardly think the only way to address the remaining inequities of the system is via increased union membership. At best this is a distraction to the stated goal of building a more progressive America.
November 14, 2008 12:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't mean to say that the vast majority of non-union workers enjoy benefits and high salaries since that is obviously not so. I only meant to say that many non-unionized industries are indeed quite progressive and offer stable careers. We can solve the remaining problems by solving health care and education and infrastructure, none of which need increased union membership to solve if they enlist non-union workers to push just as hard.
November 14, 2008 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
And a pony!
Seriously, the extent to which some otherwise genuine progressives fail to "get" the importance of unions is very discouraging.
November 14, 2008 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am not saying they have bee historically irrelevant. They were very necessary to get from there to here. I used to be in a union. I have made way more money having nothing to do with one. I am merely saying that moving forward perhaps that energy could be better focused on solving our common problems than on padding their membership numbers as the first step.
November 14, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that history that you cite argues strongly against you. There are few if any real progressive changes, going back to the whole New Deal, that could have come about without the ability of unions to mobilize their members; trying to mobilize unorganized workers is like pushing on a string. It's extremely naive to think that, for example, Barack Obama's email list is anything like an adequate substitute.
November 14, 2008 1:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are historically inaccurate. Union membership has never represented more than 30 percent or so of workers. That they had an impact on the new deal is fair to say. That unions are relevant in today's world is not a case that can be made by pointing to 1932 and resting on laurels.
I have yet to hear any real ideas beyond Union Good and Business Bad. That is not going to get the kind of mandates for progressive change that is required in today's electorate. Might explain the 10 percent union membership as well. Less than the percentage of republicans who voted for Obama.
We need new solutions to problems that can't be solved with unions alone, even if they got to their highest historical percentage of American workers.
November 14, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suppose it's wishful thinking on my part, but maybe now that the avarice and incompetence of management in the large corporations has been exposed, we can get rid of the guilty parties and start over? Make it a condition of any financial relief package--tissue paper parachutes for all concerned.
With honest people doing the managing, the need for hardcore unions would be lessened. Question is: have we evolved enough yet to produce a sufficient crop of honest, competent managers?
As I said, wishful thinking . . .
November 14, 2008 4:24 PM | Reply | Permalink