Earlier this week, the Employee Free Choice Act failed to gain the 60 votes it needed for consideration by the United States Senate. While this was not unexpected, the defeat of the bill represents a failure by many of those in Washington to stand up for the rights of ordinary workers.
However, Even in defeat, Tuesday’s vote on the Employee Free Choice Act brings with it some good signs for the future. Making progress in American politics is a long-term effort. And, although we may not have been able to pass the EFCA now, it is increasingly likely that we will be able to in the future.
As a college student, I took a number of classes on public policy. Often, those classes would stress the incremental nature of American politics, and the slowness of change. Bills take years, if not decades, to go anywhere, if they move at all.
The snail’s pace of American politics is aptly described in a story I read in one of my public policy textbooks. It has been ages since I read the original, so I may not get every detail straight. But, the story went something like this:
A young lobbyist worked hard to draft a bill on an issue that he cared about, and to convince someone in Congress to introduce it. Eventually, he found a congressman who was willing to do so. He stopped by the congressman’s office for a short meeting, and to drop off the bill.
During the meeting, the lobbyist handed the congressman the bill. The congressman thanked him for it, and promised to introduce it tomorrow. Several times, the lobbyist asked the congressman about reading the bill, but the congressman never did so. Each time, he just said, "No, I’ll just introduce the bill tomorrow."
As the lobbyist was preparing to leave after their meeting, he looked at the bill, still sitting on the congressman’s desk, and decided to ask one last time if the congressman wanted to take a look at it before he left. The congressman looked up at the young lobbyist, and said the following:
"Son, it’s going to be ten years before this bill is considered by the full committee. It’ll be another ten years after that before it actually makes it out of committee. It’ll be another ten years before it makes it to a vote on the floor. And, it’ll be ten years after that before it has enough votes to pass.
"There will be plenty of time, later on, for me to read this bill. Right now, all I’m going to do is introduce it tomorrow."
Hopefully, the Employee Free Choice Act will not take 40 years to become law. But, the moral of the story still stands: Change happens slowly in American politics. That change can be especially slow when you’re up against well funded economic interests who are going to oppose it with all of their might.
Another point made in my public policy classes is that many ideas for change will only bear fruit during a narrow window of opportunity. This window of opportunity is a time when national problems and political realities intersect in just the right way to allow for progress: The public is finally paying attention to a problem in sufficient numbers – often because of a major event or news story that brings it to their attention. The public cares about that problem enough. And our elected officials are the right kind of people, who are willing to do something about the problem, and who are familiar with the solution that is being proposed.
Prior to such windows of opportunity, the activists and politicians who support an idea must work hard, both to convince as many people as possible that their proposal is worthwhile, but also simply to get as many people as they can acquainted with the idea. Even if many individuals don’t immediately support the idea when they hear it, it’s important that they at least consider it. An idea that has not been established firmly enough in the minds of the public, and of elected officials, may not have enough strength to take advantage a window of opportunity when it opens. People must be familiar with a proposed solution to support it. Congressmen and Senators are not likely to vote for an idea that no one has ever heard of.
Despite Tuesday’s defeat, the signs from Washington are actually somewhat encouraging. The EFCA has been around long enough to begin establishing itself as an idea. The Democrats, long with a reputation for being a "divided party," were unanimous, this time around, in voting for labor rights. Even so called "conservative" Democrats, like Landrieu and Nelson, voted with labor on this one. They joined with Arlen Specter, the sole Republican supporter of the EFCA, to give that bill a majority support of 51 votes. The count would have been 52, had South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson, an EFCA co-sponsor, been able to vote.
In essence, this week, more U.S. Senators were willing to stand up for the rights of workers than were willing to stand up for the entrenched power of big business. That is something that we all ought to be able to appreciate, especially after long years of anti-labor majorities in both houses. And, it is enough to spark hope for the future.
Despite having a simple majority on our side, the EFCA’s time has not yet come, our window of opportunity has not yet open. However, with 58% of non-managerial workers supporting the idea of forming a union, with a Democratic majority in the House and the U.S. Senate, and with the potential for positive change as a result of the 2008 elections, we may see our window open very soon.
Until then, the Employee Free Choice Act, like any other legislative proposal, will require a long-term commitment from progressive and labor activists. We will need to build the foundation of its success by not only lobbying and writing our elected officials, but also by familiarizing ourselves with the facts of unions, the labor movement, and the EFCA, and aggressively promoting them in the face of the well funded lies and propaganda of big business. We will need to promote the EFCA not only to our congressmen, but also to our neighbors and family members. Even if they don’t support the EFCA immediately, a reasonable, well-fashioned argument could be enough to make them consider it later on, during a crucial window of opportunity for change.
In essence, we have to keep fighting, and we have to maintain our efforts to keep the EFCA a viable idea for when its time does come. And, that means we have to seize every opportunity to combat Orwellian Republican propaganda, such as the following, from an article on Tuesday's vote:
The GOP also plans to use the vote for election-year campaigning, with corporations and businesses being the top opponents to the legislation. The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a fundraising video last week asking people to contribute in order to help stop the Employee Free Choice Act.
"Republicans will remind our constituents about the fact that Democrats proposed to strip workers of their voting rights," McConnell said.
Under the argument of Mitch McConnell, a bill that would give increased power to workers suddenly becomes "stripping them of their rights." Reality could not be farther from the truth. The EFCA maintains the right of workers to hold elections on forming a union: At any point, under the changes the EFCA would make, workers may have such an election if 30% of them opt to do so. All the EFCA would do is strip the ability of employers – who are almost always hostile to the idea of unionizing – to force a union election, even if 90% of their workers sign cards favoring unionization.
We must work to combat the message being sent by the Mitch McConnells of the world. And, we must also never lose sight of the real people, and real lives, that will be negatively impacted if the EFCA is not passed:
More than 600 people work at the Lancaster [California] warehouse, the distribution hub for Rite Aid’s largest market. A group of them first approached the ILWU in March 2006. They were tired of working "at will" (employer-speak for being fired at any time) and of the mandatory overtime piled on to their already 10-hour days. They were sick of punishing production standards and of freezing in the winter and frying in the summer because the warehouse lacked adequate climate control.
"More than anything, we wanted them to respect us as workers," Meza said.
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Managers spied on union activities and interrogated people about their feelings for the union. They threatened that employees would lose their regular annual raise if the union came in and routinely referred to union supporters as "union pushers." They posted a memo throughout the plant that listed the union organizing committee members and advised them it would do anything necessary to protect against "threats, harassment and intimidation...damage to any property...theft or misappropriation of property...any violent acts or acts of insubordination." They disciplined several union supporters and fired Fontaine for "causing controversy."
Fontaine recalls the frightening minutes before she was fired:
My manager had me in his office and called me an ‘agitator’ and a ‘pot stirrer’ and asked, ‘Are you a builder or a wrecker?’ He pounded on his desk and said, ‘My father once told me something when I was young and he used to knock me around, and that is ‘never, never pass up an opportunity to shut up.’
We will not "shut up." Instead, we will continue to fight, to tell the stories of people like Nacho Meza and Debbie Fontaine, and to make sure that their voices are heard.
Change happens slowly in American politics. But, the Employee Free Choice Act is an idea whose time will come. And, we will– we must – be there to help build support for it, every step of the way.