In My Opinion: You Did Us a Favor, Mr. Norquist

The central figure behind California's Proposition 226, radical right strategist Grover Norquist, openly exposed the cynicism behind this attack on organized labor's political program.
More or less admitting that Prop 226 wasn't really about election finance "reform," Norquist called it a no-lose scheme for those who would like to silence workers and destroy unions. Even if the effort failed, he gloated, it would drain unions of resources and energy expended to fight this measure and others like it around the country.

He could hardly have been more wrong. Instead of distracting and deflating the labor movement, the Prop 226 battle has energized and inspired union members not only in California but everywhere.

For one thing, this campaign demonstrated the power of grassroots mobilization to move mountains - in this case a mountain of public opinion that favored Prop 226 by fully 70 percent only four months before the June 2 vote. Not only that, Gov. Pete Wilson staked his presidential hopes on this issue and did almost nothing all spring but campaign for Prop 226, giving it high visibility in the media nationwide.

To achieve the resounding defeat of 226 took a massive volunteer effort, with thousands of rank-and-file union activists knocking on doors, staffing phone banks, registering voters, stuffing envelopes, and working with the news media. It was a model of effective campaign work and I'm very proud of the active role by CWA locals and members in California.

A second important lesson from this campaign is that - despite the perception that unions have a poor public image - we can rally public support when we explain what unions are really all about.

Our enemies forced us to do something we seldom do, which is tell the world about our political agenda- fighting to raise the minimum wage, protect overtime standards, strengthen job safety laws, safeguard pensions, defend Medicare and Social Security, and improve health coverage and patients' rights.

Interestingly, big business in California declined to support Prop 226, much to the surprise of Norquist and his patron, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and Gov. Wilson. The reason: the measure was so patently one-sided, seeking solely to limit the political role of unions, that it would have invited a counter-balancing move to restrict political expenditures by corporations, which out-spend labor by 11-1 in politics.

Some union employers even stepped forward to contribute to a fund to defeat Prop 226, such as GTE which offered $50,000 and American Income Life Insurance, which donated $100,000.

Clearly, the campaign showed that it is the extreme, anti-worker agenda of Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey that is out of tune with the American people, and that organized labor best represents the aspirations of most citizens in the political arena.

This suggests enormous opportunities for us - if we take advantage of them.

For one, we can fundamentally change the hostile political climate in Congress and many state governments if we can duplicate this fall, across the country, the kind of model grassroots campaign that was mobilized against Prop 226.

Sometimes it seems that we are at our best only when under grave assault. The key to revitalizing organized labor and building our influence politically is to make member mobilization - education, communication, involvement - a permanent way of life in our union work.

We also have an opportunity in the area of public and media relations to build support for our union programs and lay the foundation for organizing a new generation of American workers. This too needs to be an on-going effort, local by local and community by community.

Instead of letting our enemies define us as "no longer relevant," and spread lies about union corruption and bossism, we know that if we make the effort to tell people what we really do and stand for, most people respond positively.

Our message: Simply, we are the most democratic institution in American society. And in a world where loyalty to the employer no longer is returned in kind, where workers are sacrificed as fealty to Wall Street, wage and salary earners need the collective strength of organization as never before.