Date: Wed, 06 May 1998 13:16:37 -0400
From: "Charles Brown" <charlesb-AT-CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>
Subject: M-TH: Fwd: knocking unions out of the initiative process


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Date: Tue, 5 May 1998 14:12:56 -0700
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From: dbacon-AT-igc.apc.org (David Bacon)
Subject: knocking unions out of the initiative process

PROPOSITION 226 WOULD KNOCK UNIONS OUT OF THE INITIATIVE PROCESS
By David Bacon

        SAN FRANCISCO (5/4/98) -- Proposition 226, the Political
Contributions by Employees initiative, might not spell the end for union
participation in politics entirely, as some of its opponents fear.  But it
will have a very large impact on the initiative process itself.
        It will essentially end the ability of unions to use initiatives to
raise the minimum wage, for instance, or to oppose measures like the
anti-immigrant Proposition 187 or those favoring school vouchers.
        Proposition 226 will cut drastically the amount of money labor has
available for politics, by requiring unions to get the signature of each
member, every year, before any portion of their dues money can be spent on
political action.
        Today, unions endorse candidates and adopt political programs for
lobbying by indirect vote.  Members elect their union's executive board
every two or three years.  They in turn decides by majority vote to make
endorsements or support legislation.  Those members who disagree with their
union's actions can "opt out."   Courts have upheld their ability to
withhold that part of their dues which pays for political activity.
        Proposition 226 would reverse that process, requiring members to
"opt in."  In order to collect money for politics, unions would have to get
permission from every member, every year, on every issue.  The process
would be so cumbersome and time-consuming that it would vastly reduce the
money collected each year for political purposes.
        In the state of Washington, voters adopted a campaign reform
initiative in 1994, Proposition 134, which had provisions similar to those
of Proposition 226, but which applied only to public sector employees.
After it passed, public employee unions were able to collect only 20% of
the money they collected previously for political activity.
        If California unions were faced with the same reduction, union
campaigners say the first thing to be eliminated would be the funding
unions have provided over the last decade for initiatives affecting issues
from immigration to the minimum wage, affirmative action and school
funding.
        In 1996, for instance, California unions decided to try to raise
the state's minimum wage, after it had been frozen at $4.25/hour for over a
decade.  They wrote and qualified Proposition 210.  Other groups
contributed to the effort as well,  But of the $1.6 million which paid for
collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures, and then for the campaign
to win its passage, unions came up with about $1.25 million, according to
Richard Holober, who ran the campaign for the state AFL-CIO.
        The opposition campaign spent about $1 million directly.  In
addition, the state Chamber of Commerce sponsored TV ads against "job
killing" proposals, one of which targeted the minimum wage increase.
Holober estimates the minimum wage ad alone cost $3-400,000, for a total
exceeding that spent directly by labor.
        Hiking the minimum wage proved to be popular issue, and it won with
62% of six million votes cast.  "But if our political action budget was cut
by 80%, we wouldn't even have considered spending what it took to get 210
passed," Holober warns.
        Ironically, it's not union members who would have suffered, but the
state's lowest-paid employees.  Of the 2.1 million Californians receiving
minimum wage, over 90% don't belong to unions.  And when the wage floor
went up to $5.75/hour this January, not everyone celebrated.  Employers had
to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in higher wages, giving many of them
a big interest in getting unions out of the political process.
        Other labor-backed initiatives  over the past decade include
Proposition 98, financed by teachers' unions, which required the state to
devote a minimum percentage of its budget to schools.  The state labor
federation used the initiative process to reinstate funding for Cal-OSHA,
after it was removed from the budget by then-Governor George Deukmejian.
That one cost unions about $1.4 million.  Labor dollars passed Proposition
162, which forced Governor Pete Wilson to stop raiding the Public Employee
Retirement System, which funds the pensions of state workers.
        Not all labor efforts have been successful.  Measures to introduce
universal health care (Proposition 186) and to control HMO abuses
(Propositions 214 and 216) were vastly outspent by corporations, and lost.
Labor also weighed in on the hottest issues before California's electorate
- immigration and affirmative action.  Unions provided the majority of the
funds that were used to oppose both Proposition 187, which barred schooling
and medical care for undocumented immigrants, and 209, which ended
affirmative action in state hiring, contracting and university admissions.

        Removing union money from the initiative process is the brainchild
of a group of Republican politicians.  Some of them opposed unions in one
of the state's hardest-fought initiative battles - school vouchers - which
would have diverted part of the state's public education budget to fund
private schools.
        Proposition 226 was written by James Righeimer, Mark Bucher and
Frank Ury, a trio of extreme Republicans whose political umbrella, the
Education Alliance, is dedicated to the election of far-right Christian
conservatives to school boards in Orange County.  The three backed
Proposition 174, the school voucher initiative, which was defeated in 1993.
The campaign against it was funded primarily by the state's two teachers'
unions.  Many teachers believe that Proposition 226 is payback.
        Whether or not its origin was truly local, Proposition 226 quickly
garnered Republican interest on a much higher level.  Governor Pete Wilson,
who has opposed every labor initiative since taking office, while battling
unions constantly in the state legislature, quickly became the campaign's
co-chair.
        The campaign went national almost immediately.  Its most important
booster, Grover Norquist, first donated just shy of $50,000 last fall as
the initiative gathered signatures.  When signature-gathering didn't
proceed fast enough, he channeled $441,000 to boost it over the top through
his lobbying organization, Americans for Tax Reform.
        Since 226 made the ballot in California, initiative campaigns have
started in at least three other states, and copycat measures have been
introduced into at least eight state legislatures.  This national effort is
partly the product of the Citizens for a Sound Economy Foundation.  The
group has spent over $1 million so far in California alone on television
advertising supporting Proposition 226.  The National Taxpayers Union has
also purchased over $1 million in TV ad time, an estimate made by ad
buyers, according to anti-226 campaign spokesperson Jose Moreno.
        Norquist is a Washington DC lobbyist, whose efforts would benefit
substantially from a national decline in union influence.  An article by
Ken Silverstein in Mother Jones revealed that Norquist was hired directly
in 1996 by Microsoft Corp. for $120,000/year.  Microsoft is headquartered
in Washington state, where the first 226-type proposition surfaced.
        Norquist helped obtain a $1.7 tax break on software exports,
primarily benefiting Microsoft.  He lobbied heavily for an increase in the
H-2 visa program, which would allow high-tech companies to import more
temporary workers, a move opposed strongly by labor.
        Norquist also worked for Jonas Savimbi for $10,000/month.  During
the apartheid era, the U.S. and South Africa financed Savimbi's effort to
destabilize the government of Angola.
        J. Patrick Rooney, an Indiana financier, like Norquist contributed
just shy of $50,000 to Proposition 226 at the campaign's beginning.  Both
are close friends of House Speaker Newt Gingrich.  Rooney has proposed
replacing Medicare with medical savings accounts, a form of private
insurance pioneered by his Golden Rule Insurance Corp. and strongly opposed
by unions.  Other backers of Proposition 226 include Carl Lindner of
Cincinnati's American Financial Group ($100,000), Richard Mellon Scaife,
Clinton-basher and ultra-conservative heir of the Mellon steel fortune from
Pittsburgh, PA ($50,000), and Robert Peterson, of LA's Peterson Publishing
Company ($50,000).
        Much more money to support the proposition is expected to flow into
the state in the last weeks of the campaign, when it will not be reported
until after the polls close.  TV advertising on both sides is expected to
consume most of a projected $30 million in expenditures.
        Opposing the initiative is the AFL-CIO itself, which has pledged
over $8 million.  The state labor federation, the state service employees,
building trades, and food and commercial workers unions, and the California
Federation of Teachers, have each contributed $100,000.  The California
Teachers Association put in $3 million.
        On a local level, labor councils around the state have urged unions
to assess their members for additional campaign funds.  On the ground,
rank-and-file union volunteers are walking precincts, handing out
literature and making phone calls.

        - 30 -

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phone:          510.549.0291            berkeley, ca  94703
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