Union leader: Dems use ‘labor movement as an ATM’

It’s time for workers to stop supporting candidates who don’t support them, and instead fight for truly progressive candidates at all levels of government who will stand up for the middle class, said Ken Sagar, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, in a column posted on the liberal Web site Blog for Iowa.

“I understand that a party that alleges to support workers and advance the middle class uses the labor movement as an ATM, as a source of free campaign workers, as a strong back to carry them to victory, and a perceived weak mind that would not notice the huge disparity between promises and deliveries,” said Sagar, who is also treasurer of the Iowa Democratic Party. “Suffice to say, we have noticed.”

Democrats gained control of both chambers of the Iowa legislature and the governor’s mansion in 2006, and labor played a big role in getting them there. Despite this fact — and despite labor helping Democrats expand their margins in both chambers in 2008 — none of organized labor’s four main legislative priorities have managed to become law.

Choice of doctor, prevailing wage, open-scope bargaining and fair share have all stalled over the last four legislative sessions. While the votes are there in the state Senate, in the House a handful of Democrats have blocked the passage of labor’s priorities. And when a bill expanding collective bargaining rights of public employee unions cleared the legislature in 2008 it was vetoed by Gov. Chet Culver.

So far this year, news hasn’t been all bad for organized labor. Culver issued an executive order last month requiring state agencies to consider using project labor agreements for major construction work. And Democrats have re-introduced two labor bills, although in watered down forms.

Sagar, who made headlines last spring for warning Democrats who voted against union legislation that they may face a backlash at the ballot box in 2010, said labor has changed over the years and become more successful at educating voters and helping their friends get elected.

“What we have not changed is the unrealistic reliance on others to live up to their commitments and move progressive legislation forward,” he said. “What we have not changed is our expectations that workers have the same rights as other citizens, or even corporations.”

Workers can no longer let others “tell us what they will do for us, pick the candidates, set the agenda, or otherwise control our destiny,” Sagar said. “There are other ways to get the interests of workers and middle class.”

In the aftermath of the 2009 session, many observers wondered if Iowa Democrats’ failure to move any aspect of labor’s agenda would cause national unions to stop directing resources to the Hawkeye State. The effect would be big for the Iowa Democratic Party. In 2008, AFSCME International donated $346,000 to the political action committee of its Iowa local, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Iowa Council 61. Among other big unions donors were the Service Employees International Union, which donated $125,000 to its local, and the Laborers’ International Union of Illinois, which contributed $200,000 to the Great Plains Laborers’ Council Iowa PAC.

That money helped Democratic candidates and county parties around the state.