GR EXTRA!

Union leaders deplore Obama administration's deep freeze

'We've been sidelined'

Mark Gruenberg

03 Mar 2010

Press Associates, Inc.

The labor movement is pissed off, in so many words, at the Obama administration -- and, some leaders say, they’re only reflecting views of their members.

    That’s what came through after the AFL-CIO Executive Council, meeting in Orlando, Fla., spent two hours on the morning of March 2 behind closed doors venting its frustration with a Democratic president and Democratic-run Congress whom its members played a top role in electing last year.

    According to AFSCME President Gerry McEntee, who spoke publicly, and half a dozen other council members, who spoke privately to Press Associates Union News Service, frustrations ranged from failure to push the Employee Free Choice Act to Obama’s backing of the Rhode Island school superintendent who summarily fired all 74 high school teachers when their union, AFT, wouldn’t give in to her demands.

    It even extended to reaction to Vice President Joseph Biden’s speech to the council the day before, and their closed-door meeting with the V.P., McEntee said. Biden publicly pleaded for time to let the administration’s economic program work.

    “I was sitting in the room when we discussed Biden’s speech,” McEntee, chair of the federation’s political committee, added.  “There were a lot of discouraged people.  They believed it was a speech they had heard a number of times before.”

    The complaints are important.  “The problem is that people will either sit on their hands or say we’re being taken for granted,” one state fed president told PAI.  And Vince Panvini, legislative director for the Sheet Metal Workers, reminded PAI that his union is so mad at congressional Democrats’ refusal to pass EFCA that it suspended all political contributions to candidates last year -- and will concentrate on issues instead.

    Others were more caustic.   The “pissed off” description came from another attendee in the session.  “For this we elected him?” And "you have to do something about people’s fears” about both terrorist threats and job loss, said one state fed president.  The perception of his members is that Obama isn’t.

    Still other council members complained the Obama administration “is taking labor for granted,” overlooking that unionists and their families were approximately one-fourth of all voters in 2008 -- and went for Obama by 2-to-1.  That helped the Democrat carry many key states. 

     “We’ve been sidelined,” another council member told PAI, with issues such as EFCA dropped from Obama’s agenda.  And a third noted there is no ex-unionist in the White House, much less on Obama’s inner staff. 

    When a reporter noted Biden’s top economic aide is Jared Bernstein, former co-head of the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute, this speaker replied that strictly speaking, “There’s nobody in the White House with a direct labor connection.”  That’s just like in the Clinton administration, the attendee pointed out.  

    This leader conceded, however, that Biden himself might be a conduit for unionists’ frustration.   But “once it (complaints) started rolling, it built momentum” inside the council, he added.  Frustrations ranged from the general to the specific. 

    “They’re still very upset about the (future) excise tax” on health insurance that Obama forced the union leaders to accept as part of the now-stalled health care overhaul, McEntee said.  And when he asked Biden whether “there would be a second stimulus bill like the first, he unequivocally said ‘no.’  We’re very disappointed in that.”

    Biden even tried to conciliate Teachers President Randi Weingarten by giving her a hug and -- in private and in his speech -- mentioning the 300,000 school jobs saved by last year’s stimulus law.  “But he (Biden) is the #2 and couldn’t get around” two straight days of Obama statements backing the Rhode Island firings, McEntee added.

    Another general complaint came over Obama’s proposed budget for the year starting Oct. 1.  It features an overall spending freeze for many domestic discretionary programs, raises for some and cuts for others. 

    The council members also didn’t spare the Senate.  The federation’s formal backing of its Arkansas affiliate’s endorsement of Democratic Lieut. Gov. Bill Halter in his planned May 18 primary showdown against Sen. Blanche Lincoln sends that message.  So does a pledge, of substantial money, from AFSCME, CWA, SEIU, the Steelworkers and the Teamsters, to Halter’s campaign.

    But the administration was the top target.  “Many said their people had real angst and anger” over the stimulus, jobs, and the health care excise tax, McEntee said.  The council is expected to issue a formal statement criticizing the administration.

    And one attendee quoted AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka as saying he would convey labor’s frustration to the White House.  “Rich said, ‘We’ve got to speak with one voice, or 57,’ and he is it.  He said someone has to take the message to the White House that unless they get off their ass, we’re going to sit on our hands.”