Monday, Apr. 11, 1977
A Rapid Decline in Political Clout
Only weeks ago, crusty George Meany crowed at the AFL-CIO executive council in Bal Harbour, Fla., that "the climate is good" for labor. The boast made sense: labor had spent $8.2 million to help elect a heavily Democratic Congress, and union votes had given Jimmy Carter a big lift toward the White House. Meany and his aides set down a list of ambitious legislative goals, then waited for the pro-labor Government to do its stuff (TIME, March 7).
But labor's quid failed to produce the anticipated quo. The House, in a stunning rebuff to the unions, last month rejected the common-situs picketing bill, which would have allowed one striking union to shut down an entire construction site. The same week, the White House came out for a $2.50 minimum wage--50-c- less than the AFL-CIO had demanded and only a 2-c- increase over the present minimum. "Shameful," spluttered Meany.
Only Sop. Suddenly the rest of labor's legislative program is in deep trouble. A prime example: repeal of Section 14B of the Taft-Hartley Act, which permits states to outlaw the union shop. Congressional leaders, smarting from the common-situs debacle, are unlikely even to introduce a repeal bill. There are other indications of labor's rapidly declining political clout. Carter passed over the AFL-CIO'S choices for Secretary of Labor (John Dunlop) and Secretary of Defense (James Schlesinger). He also has named New York City Human Rights Commissioner Eleanor Holmes Norton to head the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, though Meany & Co. had expressed a clear preference for Ronald Brown, head of the Washington office of the Urban League. Last week Carter belatedly did throw labor about its only sop on appointments: he chose John Fanning, a union favorite, to be chairman of the National Labor Relations Board.
Labor chiefs dismiss the setbacks as temporary. They admit that the customarily well-oiled AFL-CIO lobbying apparatus stumbled badly on the common-situs bill by ignoring warnings that the measure was in trouble until 48 hours before the vote. But, says Thomas Donahue, Meany's top assistant, "when you knock us down once, you don't get any prize. We've been down before, dusted ourselves off, and come back--and we will again."
There is considerable evidence, however, that the AFL-CIO has badly misread the mood of Congress and the White House. The Congress may be
Democratic in numbers, but many members are Southerners representing stubbornly anti-union constituencies. Nor do traditional party alliances signify much to scores of freshmen and sophomore Democrats who were elected by appealing to moderate Republicans and independents. "Remember," says a political analyst at Common Cause, the liberal lobby, "a lot of these guys ran against the old politics--and there's nothing older than George Meany twisting arms." Even old-line Democrat Al Ullman, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and a longtime friend of the unions, opposed the cornmon-situs bill because he thought it potentially inflationary and disruptive to the depressed building industry.
President Carter remembers well that most labor leaders reluctantly boarded his bandwagon only after Senators Henry Jackson and Hubert Humphrey were out of the running. Moreover, Businessman Carter is no free-spending liberal, nor are such top economic advisers as Banker Bert Lance, chief of the Office of Management and Budget, and Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal, former chief executive of Bendix Corp. Both found the AFL-CIO'S minimum-wage target too inflationary and successfully urged Carter to be more modest--over the protests of Secretary of Labor F. Ray Marshall, about the only top official of the Administration who does back AFL-CIO positions.
Another force that is undermining labor's influence in Washington is the increasingly potent anti-union lobby. Realizing that they no longer have reliable Gerald Ford around to veto any pro-labor legislation, the anti-labor voices in the capital have made themselves battle ready. The National Right to Work Committee, a group vigorously opposed to organized labor (membership: 375,000, up from a mere 40,000 in the past two years), spent more than $300,000 to torpedo the common-situs bill. The committee plastered ads in dozens of newspapers and bombarded 5,500 editorial writers and columnists across the land with thrice-weekly mailings. Other business advocates, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, kicked in $500,000 more and dispatched expert sweet-talkers to work the corridors of Congress. House leaders called the blitz one of the most effective lobbying efforts ever.
How can labor rebuild its political power? Some union men see the answer in abandoning their preoccupation with special-interest legislative goals. Says Douglas Fraser, president-designate of the United Auto Workers, which is likely to rejoin the AFL-CIO soon: "The future lies in fighting for issues like national health care, welfare reform and tax reforms. Broad coalitions can support these goals."
Labor's big guns are also beginning to acknowledge that what their movement may need most is new talent at the top. Meany is 82; AFL-CIO Legislative Director Andrew Biemiller is 70. Fraser, who is 60, says out loud what some other unionists are thinking: "Maybe the labor movement would be best served if Meany steps down in December when his term expires." He adds: "I'm for compulsory retirement at 65." Such remarks may only stiffen Meany's resolve to cling to power. But the restive mood of the younger breed may indicate that new leadership is coming--at last.
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