WASHINGTON—The AFL-CIO is wading into the intraparty Democratic Party fight over its future direction, warning that the party’s new leader—whoever it is—must promote workers’ priorities while engaging in year-round grass-roots organizing and mobilizing.
And the party must reject ties with the corporate class, federation President Liz Shuler adds. “Having leaders who prioritize big-money corporate donors is flatly unacceptable,” she declares.
Shuler’s statement, two months before the Democratic National Committee elects new leaders, is important.
Unionists provide the legions of phone bankers, precinct walkers and face-to-face voter contacts, taking over a function the party itself once performed. Union campaign finance committees, or PACs, funded by voluntary contributions, not dues, provide a large chunk of the party’s finances.
And unionists not only provide contacts and get-out-the-vote operations but also voters’ guides that list pro-worker positions alongside candidate issue stands, leaving voters to make up their own minds.
As a result, as Shuler and other union leaders repeatedly say, workers are more likely to trust information from people they know and sources they trust—namely fellow unionists—than other information providers.
Union leaders, including Teachers President Randi Weingarten, AFSCME President Lee Saunders, Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga, Service Employees President April Verrett and former L.A. County Federation of Labor President Rusty Hicks, hold approximately one-fifth of the Democratic National Committee’s seats.
Right now, there appear to be two declared candidates in the race, both former big-city mayors and prominent Biden administration officeholders: Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and Baltimore’s Martin O’Malley. O’Malley later became a popular and effective Maryland governor. Emanuel was Democratic President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, drawing gasps from the city’s progressives.
More candidates are expected to jump in.
The battle over who will lead the party, and in what direction, began almost as soon as convicted felon and former president Donald Trump defeated incumbent Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Progressives, led by Sen. Bernie Sanders and the Progressive Democrats of America, fault the chattering class and party insiders for pushing Harris away from appealing to the party’s working-class base and for not tackling kitchen-table problems—such as paying the rent and food and educating the kids—in a down-to-earth way.
The chattering class of pundits, consultants, K Street corporate lobbyists and big givers, fault the progressives for alienating voters by championing LGBT rights, diversity, equity and inclusion, and relying on a Black-brown-liberal white coalition. The chatterers also downgrade unions, just as they did under former President Bill Clinton.
The federation is strongly emphasizing that organized labor and its members provided the ground troops and often the money for the Dems—and that whoever’s elected must meet union standards.
Emphasizes strong connection to workers
The top standard Shuler listed is “a strong connection to working people and unions. That means having extensively worked with—or even for—labor in the past. In addition to understanding working-class values, DNC leaders need to know how to organize and how to talk to working people.
“Having leaders who prioritize big-money corporate donors is flatly unacceptable.”
That standard could be a problem for Emanuel. By the time he left Chicago’s mayoralty after two four-year terms, the politically powerful Chicago Teachers Union/AFT Local 1 hated him for running the public schools like a business, complete with a CEO—and for closing 56 schools in neighborhoods of color, with no public input. He’s unpopular in those communities, too.
“The party must restore its connection to working people by focusing on the core economic issues they care most about,” Shuler continued. “That means working closely with the labor movement to develop an economic framework of values-based policies and messaging that speaks to ALL working people, regardless of age, race, gender, or ideology.
“To be the party of working people, Democrats need to talk openly and often with all working people about kitchen-table economic issues families think about daily.”
It also means doing so every day, year-round, through a robust precinct organization, rather than leaving that to unions and their progressive allies, Shuler said. And it must do so via modern infrastructure, including social media, not just methods such as TV ads which are now ineffective, but shove money into consultants’ pockets.
“The only way Democrats can break through the political noise with a working-class agenda is to have a year-round infrastructure in place to reach voters where they are,” Shuler declared.
“The party must address its failure to communicate successfully with working people and invest in innovative and creative methods of messaging instead of simply enriching the consulting class. Democrats must better utilize a variety of community-based platforms to reach working people wherever they are on the issues that matter most, not just near election time, but all the time.
“As the DNC moves ahead with its selection process for its next leadership team, working people need to be at the table. Every Democrat running for leadership should be able to clearly articulate an answer to this fundamental question: ‘If you were elected as chair, what would you do to elevate labor and working people’s voices and influence within the Democratic Party?’” Shuler said.
“And please provide specifics.”
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