Which Side Are You On, Boys?

There’s an interesting internecine debate over onTPM’s Labor Blog about whether the Democrats should actually give a damn about labor. I’m not kidding.

There’s quite a bit of back and forth about “what has labor done for me lately” (presumably besides clean your house, fix your food, build your buildings and raise your kids.) And there’s quite a bit about how labor seems to, you know, challenge the proper role of the meritocracy and what have you.

Why should Democrats support labor? I’ve got one word for you.

Arnold.

If you want to know what happened to Arnold Schwarzenegger in California, it’s that he fucked with the public employees unions and they’ve fucked him back. Hard.

Here’s Arnold’s answer to the challenge:

During the course of the short call one of Schwarzenegger’s media advisors outlined the team’s plan to create a “phenomenon of anger” that would turn voters against employee unions, which have sharply criticized the governor for his budget cuts to education and health care programs.

A representative from Wells Fargo advised the governor’s team to focus its ire on public employee unions to avoid angering labor unions for private industry, and a representative from Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. urged the governor to announce his support for a ballot initiative that would make it harder for unions to use member dues to support legislative lobbying.

These are middle class American workers who have not, contrary to Republican lies, become lazy, fat and opportunistic with their huge salaries that pay oh, 50k a year. These are cops, firemen, nurses and teachers who are trying to work in increasingly difficult circumstances without any hope of ever getting rich. Indeed, many of these people chose their jobs because they actually give a damn. And they tend to support Democrats for a reason — because Democrats support them. You don’t have to have a Phd from MIT to understand how this thing works.

And by the way, this plan of Arnold’s to create a “phenomenon of anger” so far has only driven him further into a ditch. People are angry all right. They’re angry at him.

The change of fortune for Governor Schwarzenegger is broad-based. Perhaps not surprisingly, 83% of Democrats and 88% of Liberals say they are not inclined to support his reelection bid. But solid majorities of non-partisans and other party identifiers (61%), and ideological moderates (60%) now say they are not inclined to support Schwarzenegger’s reelection bid. Close to one quarter (23%) of Republicans, and almost a third of Conservatives (30%), admit they are not inclined to support Schwarzenegger in 2006. Women are more opposed to Schwarzenegger’s reelection than men (63% of women not inclined to support his reelection, 51% of men), and Latinos are strongly opposed as well (72% not inclined to support him).

From what I gathered in the TPM Cafe thread, a lot of new Yorkers are awfully disappointed in labor’s position on the new stadium. Apparently, needing work is just not a good enough reason to inconvenience the residents with traffic and parking problems. It was a slap in the face to the fine liberals who support their tawdry pecuniary concerns and it won’t be soon forgotten. O la dee da.

Maybe Democrats in the blue enclaves (like mine here in LA also) forget what it takes to put together a winning coalition, but somebody obviously needs to remind them, quickly. Labor is the only existing liberal institution that we have that can be mobilized for issues and voting. I love the netroots as much as the next person, but let’s face facts. We’re a long way from being able to rival the evangelical lock step machine that the right has built over the last 25 years. Even the unions are a pale imitation of what they used to be — but let’s not throw the baby out with bath water. The institution of labor unions is one of our best and most useful constituencies. To even contemplate the idea that we should abandon the working class to ivy league Republican blather about meritocrisy and expect workers to care about rich people’s traffic congestion over their own ability to put food on the table is incredibly myopic.

And I won’t even go in to the clear moral obligation we have to fight for those at the bottom end of the income scale — many of whom in places like Los Angeles are gaining a modicum of dignity and financial security through the hard work of unions who are organizing the service industry — the single biggest employer of poor people in this country, many of whom are women and immigrants. (Ask yourself why the restaurant industry is one of the biggest Republican contributors out there.) And interestingly, when they become unionized, they also become politically active. They vote.

No political party can afford to abandon a huge slice of workers because those workers need things that the rich don’t care about. Like financial security, for instance. Republicans are offering them a phony dream and a place in the afterlife. It’s our job to offer them something a little bit more tangible right here on earth.

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