A Late Reward

All of you who worked so hard in the election last year just got a belated and unexpected reward-a change in majority control of the U.S. Senate.

Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont departed the Republican caucus to become an Independent, and it left Washington, D.C., agog, probably making more of the event than the rest of the country thought proper.

Some realism is no doubt in order. The Senate is still made up of the same 100 people and we still face the same opposition on worker issues from the White House and the House of Representatives. So no earthquake is going to happen in terms of major legislative initiatives to benefit workers and their unions.

But damage control is a separate issue. Committee chairmanships are particularly important in the Senate and the majority party controls the schedule of both the committees and the Senate floor. If Democrats had that control earlier this year, the OSHA standard on repetitive motion injuries that took 10 years to develop could not have been repealed in two days. From now on, some anti-union measures like legalizing company unions and the paycheck deception law will have less chance to see the light of day, despite President Bush's interest in them. So "Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle" has a nice ring to it.

Otherwise, much of the punditry about the Jeffords action has been off the mark. Many political observers have expressed surprise that in his first 100 days President Bush turned out to be a very conservative Republican. Turned out to be? How could you be surprised by the ideology of the Bush Administration, given his Texas record and his handling of the South Carolina primary last year? Any candidate whose positions make John McCain into a "liberal" is indeed a candidate who is coming to bat from way out in right field.

Others analyzed the whole Jeffords episode as a fluke because of Bush's indifference to the northeastern moderates in his party and the arrogance of the new White House staff. Those Republicans-some endorsed by IBEW-don't deserve the insult that their beliefs were formed by how they've been treated since Inaugural Day. They are the heirs of labor-supported Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller, Jacob Javits and Clifford Case. And just this year, 33 GOP House members told President Bush he was wrong to issue an Executive Order wiping out Project Labor Agreements. And given the performance of both parties in the past, "most arrogant new White House crew" would be a hard title to win.

But what is most important is to recall how the Senate got to 50-50, the lineup that made Jeffords' decision pivotal. The Democratic victories that brought that 50-50 standoff included superhuman efforts by the IBEW and other unions, most noticeably in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Missouri and Washington. Control of the Senate is a just reward for those efforts. Also, next year's elections will see 20 Republicans forced to defend their seats, compared to only 14 for the Democrats. Meanwhile, it takes 218 votes for control of the House and at this moment Republicans have only 221. That kind of opportunity brings our work for next year into sharper focus.

Last year we followed a somewhat new game plan for grass roots political action as laid out by Ed Hill for the IBEW and the Labor 2000 program from the AFL-CIO. The execution of that game plan is clearly recognized as labor's finest hour, no matter how distressed we were by the presidential race. Obviously, we know what it takes to win.

One of labor's darkest hours politically came with President Ronald Reagan, but it was at that point that AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland said, "the great thing about elections in a democracy like ours is that you always get another chance."

What I see now is a lot of IBEW sisters and brothers itching to get another chance.

Jeremiah J. O'Connor
International Secretary-Treasurer

  Secretary-
Treasurer’s
Message

July 2001 IBEW Journal

"much of the punditry about the Jeffords action has been off the Mark."