Tom Foley, who according to some polls will be Governor
Dannel Malloy’s likely opponent in the upcoming gubernatorial race, ran into a
string of barbed wire when he made an appearance at a recent AFL-CIO gathering,
a watering hole for progressives seeking political office.
Mr. Foley appeared unarmed with empty hands – largely
because there is as yet no “there” in his campaign – and he was, as expected,
rudely rebuffed.
To approval and titters from the floor, Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, warned, just before Mr. Foley stepped to
the lectern, “He will tell you
anything and then he will try to kill you ... We are smarter than that, aren’t
we Connecticut?”
In GOP backrooms,
puzzled Republicans were scratching their nobs after Mr. Foley’s appearance and
asking themselves, “Why did Mr. Foley feel compelled to meet union leaders on the same common ground as, say, Mr.
Malloy or Malloy gadfly Jon Pelto, who pointedly was not invited to make an
appearance before the AFL-CIO crowd?” Mr. Pelto – like Mr. Malloy, a
progressive, only more so -- has opened an independent campaign for governor.
The lover’s
quarrel between Mr. Malloy and Mr. Pelto revolves around the question: Which of
the two is a more faithful champion of union interests? Mr. Pelto thinks he is
a more faithful Samuel Gompers than Mr. Malloy; Mr. Malloy, naturally, demurs. Did
Mr. Foley expect to convince hard-boiled union leaders to abandon the
Pelto-Malloy steamer in favor of his bark?
Suppose, just to
suppose, Mr. Foley’s view of the union incubus in Connecticut paralleled that
of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, the
most recent bête noir of union progressives. It is not Mr. Walker’s failures that trouble union leaders but his successes: Wisconsin's Act
10, requires public employees to contribute 6 percent of their pay toward their
pensions and at least 12 percent of their health plan costs; the law also
repealed a so-called “fair-share requirement” that compels all public employees
represented by a union to pay union fees.
In the absence of
the compulsory requirement, many employees have opted out of unions; in the
city of Oshkosh alone, union membership has fallen from 450 to 225.
Not long ago, Mr. Walker accepted from Republicans in Connecticut its coveted Prescott Bush award, after which many Republicans in the state began to long for a “Wisconsin moment” – meaning a moment of effective resistance to public employee unions that, here in Connecticut, have been for decades the campaign love-children of progressives such as Mr. Malloy and Mr. Pelto but not, it is often forgotten, President Franklin Roosevelt, who sought to outlaw employee unions. “It is impossible,” Mr. Roosevelt insisted, “to bargain collectively with the government,” because government workers do not generate profits; they negotiate for more tax money. A union strike against taxpayers, Mr. Roosevelt said, would be “unthinkable and intolerable.”
Not long ago, Mr. Walker accepted from Republicans in Connecticut its coveted Prescott Bush award, after which many Republicans in the state began to long for a “Wisconsin moment” – meaning a moment of effective resistance to public employee unions that, here in Connecticut, have been for decades the campaign love-children of progressives such as Mr. Malloy and Mr. Pelto but not, it is often forgotten, President Franklin Roosevelt, who sought to outlaw employee unions. “It is impossible,” Mr. Roosevelt insisted, “to bargain collectively with the government,” because government workers do not generate profits; they negotiate for more tax money. A union strike against taxpayers, Mr. Roosevelt said, would be “unthinkable and intolerable.”
In what sense did
Mr. Foley’s implicit promises to AFL-CIO leaders clarify a winning GOP campaign
message?
A winning
message, some political strategists think, would be one that held together Mr.
Foley’s voter base of 2010, adding to it additional votes from Republicans,
independents and even some moderate
Democrats put off by the recent swing to the left of Connecticut’s new
progressive hegemon. Economically, Connecticut’s new Democratic Party has
turned the clock back to the rude beginnings of the Progressive Party nearly a
century ago; morally, the new progressives have whizzed past both liberalism
and libertarianism towards libertinism; and socially their nostrums have led to
urban anarchy and illiteracy in urban public schools.
Mr. Foley need
not be anti-union during his campaign, but any attempt to outbid Mr. Malloy and
Mr. Pelto on issues dear to the hearts of the unions’ upper crust is doomed to
fail. Republicans, Independent and even some antique Democratic moderates –
most certainly over regulated businesses and much plucked Connecticut taxpayers
– will respond positively to a message that cuts governmental costs by
requiring unions to bear a real “shared sacrifice,” which might include
increased payments to pensions, salary freezes and, somewhere down the road, an
end to compulsory union fees.
Mr. Foley might
easily cite Thomas Jefferson on the point. A portion of the fees collected by
unions are spent agitating for policies and politicians who represent union
interests, most often Democrats such as Mr. Malloy and Mr. Pelto. Those fees
ought to be voluntary. Just as Mr. Roosevelt argued against public employee
unions, so Mr. Jefferson argued strenuously against the tyranny of small minds:
“To compel a man to furnish
contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and
abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”
Somehow one
cannot imagine Mr. Foley unfurling that banner at a union gathering. Or this
one: “If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the
people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become
happy." One might easily imagine the progressive head-honchoes of the
Democratic Party citing that last sentiment as a justification for disinviting
Mr. Jefferson to their annual Jefferson, Jackson Bailey Dinner.
Perhaps they might consider extending an invitation to Mr. Foley in his stead.
Comments
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Next Monday’s Ruling in Harris v. Quinn
By Ed Whelan
June 27, 2014 3:32 PM
Public-sector union bosses will have difficulty sleeping this weekend, as they await the Supreme Court’s disposition on Monday of what may be the surprise blockbuster of the term, Harris v. Quinn. The Court may well overrule a dubiously reasoned precedent from 1977—Abood v. Detroit Board of Education—that held that the First Amendment allows the government to condition a person’s employment in the public sector on that person’s paying fees to a union.
Public-sector unions, of course, have benefited massively from the coerced funding that Abood allows.