Big Labor, the Elections, and You

The Wall Street Journal ran a story last week that should be a wake-up call to the business community. The article says big labor is "growing new political muscles" and is now "the single-strongest force in elections" outside the two national political parties.

 

The unions are raising and spending more money and concentrating their efforts on the "ground game"--that is, ensuring members of union households vote, and vote for the union-backed candidate, who is more often than not anti-business.

 

If you want to know how powerful a force unions will be in the 2008 elections, follow the money. In the past two elections--2004 and 2006--unions spent a combined $561 million to help elect anti-business candidates. That's nearly a 50% increase over the $381 million spent on the previous two campaigns. Meanwhile, from 2002-2006, corporate spending dropped about 9%.

 

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney has vowed to spend $200 million on the 2008 elections and field 200,000 volunteers. They are going for the trifecta--the House, the Senate, and the White House. Even if there is some Irish bluster in those numbers, assume it's only half that? Imagine what impact that could have in closely fought elections.

 

Here's the most important statistic: exit polls show that voters living in households that include a union member make up almost one-quarter of those who vote in elections!

 

We don’t dispute the unions’ right to participate in the political process; it’s their policy agenda that concerns us – eliminating secret ballot elections for unionization votes; mandating employer paid leave and health care regardless of cost; giving teachers unions even more control over our failing educational system; expanding artificial prevailing wage laws; and other restrictive measures which will make it ever more difficult for American employers to compete.

 

That's why the U.S. Chamber is building a political and grassroots system in 144 key congressional districts across the country. We're going to pour unprecedented amounts of resources into these communities--and do so on a nonpartisan basis--and battle on the ground with business adversaries. We will also target key House and Senate races that could make all the difference in building a firewall in the next Congress ... a firewall that stops the worst ideas and advances positive proposals for a competitive American economy.

 

The U.S. Chamber is not anti-union--in fact, we work closely with progressive unions that are interested in creating jobs for their members instead of new entitlements and bigger government. Forward-thinking unions have the same agenda that we do on issues such as infrastructure, immigration reform, and energy. What we oppose is the anti-business agenda of certain political and ideological factions within the labor movement--and we will do everything we can to stop that agenda.