Bonior's Group Launching TV Ad Campaign Pushing New Government To Fill Labor's Demands
Yesterday I reported that the big unions were meeting today to put the final touches on plans to launch a big campaign to push the Obama administration and Congress to deliver on their agenda.
Now I've learned that a big pro-labor group headed by David Bonior is preparing to launch a three-week national TV ad campaign pressing the new government to deliver on one of labor's top agenda items: The Employee Free Choice Act.
This is significant, because it's the first of what will be many advocacy ads hitting the airwaves demanding action from the government that takes power in January -- or opposing such action, as the case may be.
Bonior's group, which is called American Rights at Work, will be going up with the spot for three weeks on national cable -- CNN, MSNBC, and CNN Headline News -- a senior official with the group tells me. "It's a significant buy," he says.
The spot, which will be released to the press tomorrow, was shown to me a few moments ago, and it's a pretty good one. It shows a worker being told by his bosses in a boardroom that they are going to give him health care and all sorts of other work-related benefits.
The worker then wakes up, realizing that he was dreaming, and a narrator intones that only in a dream will such a thing happen.
The spot then calls on viewers to push their members of Congress -- it doesn't mention the Obama administration -- to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which was defeated in 2007 and would give workers the right to join a union as soon as a majority of employees at a workplace say they want to.
The big unions are in a strong position to ask for quick passage of the act, because they invested heavily in Congressional races and played a major role delivering white working class voters to Obama.
Anyway, this ad gives you a sense of what's to come when the new government takes power. We'll bring you the spot itself tomorrow when we get it.
Just wanted to say Happy B'Day TPM. Wish you guys well.
Pressure from labor groups, healthcare activists, ACLU etc- I don't blame them. This nation was desperate for a President for 8 years.
But again how dickheaded?
November 13, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think so. This is focused on Congress, where the pressure belongs. And it's urently needed. Big business spent about $20 million trying (and in most cases failing) to defeat top Senate Democratic candidates on this issue. They will spend at least that much in an all-out lobbying effort to defeat EFCA. The pro-EFCA side has to get out of the gate and define the debate on this.
November 13, 2008 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
it is called the "Employee Free Choice Act"
November 13, 2008 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Beat me to it. "Employee Free Trade" sounds like a new name for outsourcing.
November 13, 2008 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
or trading the diet coke in your desk for the person in the next cubicle's mt dew.
November 13, 2008 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
fixed, thanks. brainlock
November 13, 2008 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Or Freudian slip? Are you, Greg Sargent, by any chance an MSM Fifth Columnist?! Infiltrating the most influential site of Left Blogsylvania? Trying to create a subconscious connection between unions and free trade?
Admit it! You're really working for Lou Dobbs!
November 13, 2008 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
But the ad sounds good. Makes me wonder what those GM employees in the Tennessee Saturn plant - the ones who bought GM's claims that the Saturn plant was so different and offered such great stuff that it was better than a union - are thinking now.
November 13, 2008 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are there actual numbers how much unions invested in to this election? I know they came out with many great mail ads, but aren't sure of the scope. I do know they did help out a lot in the election, but their timing on increasing benefits (and, hence, burden on companies) may be a bit off. We are kind of in a recession, no?
November 13, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
they really did a ton of door knocking and organizing...
they staked out a populist left flank for obama way before the crisis hit...
November 13, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes they did. And I agree with most of what they stand for. I just think that their timing may be a bit off.
November 13, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
* The AFL-CIO made clear that its massive outreach efforts, which the union said touched 13 million households in 24 battleground states, paid off in strong support for Obama and other Democrats.
* more than 250,000 AFL-CIO volunteers campaigned for Obama, helping him win in such swing states as Ohio, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/05/AR2008110504137.html?hpid=topnews
* SEIU members and staff made 16,137,541 phone calls in battleground states and key races across the country. who wake up and earn a paycheck every day.
http://www.seiu.org/2008/11/fast-fact-millions-contacted-over-the-phone.php
* During the general election, SEIU's members registered 102,156 new voters in battleground states.
http://www.seiu.org/2008/11/fast-fact-seiu-expanded-the-electorate.php
November 13, 2008 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice work elinw.
November 14, 2008 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
The new congress is not even in session yet. I think that people are TIRED of politics.
I say save it for January.
November 13, 2008 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Words have meaning and you need to be more careful. You said: "to pass the Employee Free Choice Act, which was defeated in 2007 and would give workers the right to join a union as soon as a majority of employees at a workplace say they want to."
The bill was not defeated. It passed the House 241-185 and was held up in the Senate by a filibuster. It received 51 votes on cloture if memory served so it had a clear majority in both houses.
November 13, 2008 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think there is a common misperception that EFCA is a classic special interest/political payback issue -- labor helped elect Obama so he owes them this.
In fact, EFCA is a linchpin issue for both policy and political reasons:
1) Policy -- union members make 30 percent more than non-union workers, they're 59 percent more likely to have health benefits and they're 80 percent more likely to have pension benefits. Increasing the percentage of workers who belong to unions will do more than any other conceivable action to swiftly raise living standards, increase purchasing power and grow the economy from the bottom up, which is what Obama wants to do.
2) Political -- As labor increases in size, its political impact increases also and progressives will be much better positioned to win elections and maintain control of Congress and the White House.
Big business recognizes this as a linchpin issue from the other side. I'd like to see all of the folks on our side -- not just labor -- recognize this as well.
November 13, 2008 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Another (perhaps final?) thought: I wonder what impact this might have on Bonior's prospects to become the next secretary of labor?
November 13, 2008 4:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Greg:
I really appreciate that you are covering this so well over the last couple of days. I hope you continue to cover the EFCA campaign and other labor-related issues. For those who don't spend time over at the Cafe, I would recommend an excellent blog entry by Nathan Newman about why EFCA should be enacted:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/11/13/card_check_is_more_democratic/
And, also, kudos to Josh for posting John Judis' in a video presentation about the merits of EFCA:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/244348.php
I'm not confident that it will be enacted as proposed, in part because of what I have been reading from fellow commenters in the Obama coalition. But I just think its fantastic that you and Josh are taking EFCA seriously, and not in the way that many on both the left and the right will approach EFCA in the coming months.
Very much obliged.
Bruce
November 14, 2008 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
What Bruce just said.
November 14, 2008 9:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Greg - glad to see the continued coverage on this. But PLEASE stop using the tired framing of "labor's demands."
Unions have legislative priorities the same as any other constituency, but no one else is ever accused of "demanding" as if they're putting a gun to anyone's head. Even though corporations effectively do so all the time.
November 14, 2008 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink