Hartford Courant: A Wave Rolls In

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Hartford Courant: A Wave Rolls In

The Hartford Courant June 19, 2006

by Paul Bass

John Olsen reaches for a metaphor when he talks about the historic leap Connecticut's labor movement is about to take. If he's lucky, the metaphor won't end up assuming a second meaning.

"Barring a tsunami, or John DeStefano dropping dead," Olsen says, Connecticut's AFL-CIO will endorse DeStefano's campaign for governor when it gathers in New Haven for a convention on June 26.

The AFL-CIO's executive board has already voted to endorse DeStefano. So, barring a cataclysmic act of nature, the full federation will approve the endorsement.

And what a history-making endorsement it will be.

DeStefano is contending with fellow Democrat Dannel P. Malloy, the party's choice at its May convention, in an Aug. 8 primary for the chance to take on Gov. M. Jodi Rell this November.

Never before has the AFL-CIO endorsed a candidate in a gubernatorial primary in Connecticut as far as Olsen, the federation's chief, can remember.

(A Rell endorsement is out of the question. Though Rell has eliminated the war atmosphere between the governor's office and labor, the two remain on different planets when it comes to contracting reform, union hiring at Adriaen's Landing, universal health care and nursing home reimbursements.)

DeStefano has already won the backing of more individual state unions than any candidate before him - 40 major state unions, representing some 140,000 workers. The AFL-CIO endorsement will legally enable different unions to pool staffs to run a joint member-to-member voter identification and pulling operation.

Unions are the prize catch in Democratic primary endorsement-fishing derbies. That's because in primaries, unions provide the vote-pulling ground troops. Just ask John Larson. He's a U.S. congressman now. But he tried to become governor first. In 1994, he had the backing of party leaders. But he lost a primary to Bill Curry largely because of activist unions who worked hard for Curry.

But unions didn't deliver Curry in the general election. Since then, union-backed gubernatorial candidates haven't come close to winning the office.

That's one reason Olsen's metaphor may acquire an unintended meaning - another loss for labor could bring if not a tsunami, at least a severe erosion of its political beachhead in state government.

This early endorsement puts more than the labor movement's influence with Republicans and independents at risk. It endangers its standing on its home turf, the Democratic Party.

Labor has guessed early, and wrong, before, and paid the price. In 1998 union leaders didn't endorse a Democratic primary candidate; instead they made sure there was no primary. They lined up early behind an insipid insider beholden to the insurance industry, under the delusion that she somehow was more "electable" than other Democrats. That insider, Barbara Kennelly, got clobbered by Gov. John Rowland, who continued to treat unions exactly the way he described them, as "the enemy."

Labor leaders had understandable reasons for organizing this early AFL-CIO endorsement for DeStefano.

As New Haven's mayor, DeStefano has delivered for unions in a way other labor-friendly politicians rarely do - by brokering difficult union-employer deals that leave all sides happy. He did that during a Yale University strike, during an organizing drive at the Omni Hotel, and most recently during a contentious dispute tying up the construction of a $430 million cancer center at Yale-New Haven Hospital.

Also, DeStefano was the first out of the box in this campaign with a detailed universal health insurance plan. No issues matter more to working families in Connecticut right now than health care and pensions. DeStefano has also proposed tying the minimum wage to inflation. He's clearly the more pro-labor candidate. "Malloy has been going around the state saying, `I am electable and DeStefano isn't.' He's saying that DeStefano is too close to labor. Part of the upside [of an early DeStefano endorsement] is to prove that wrong," says Jerry Brown, president emeritus of Connecticut's 21,000-member SEIU/District 1199, and a central labor figure working for DeStefano.

Besides, labor doesn't risk alienating Malloy if Malloy happens to win the primary. Malloy will need every vote-puller he can get against a popular incumbent. "They will be welcome to the table along with anyone else who wants to defeat Gov. Rell," says Malloy's chief strategist, Roy Occhiogrosso.

Rather, the risk is to labor's already endangered rep as a potent political force.

"If Malloy wins the primary," says retiring state House Minority Leader Robert Ward, "it's out that they can't even affect the outcome of a primary. When they say to Democratic legislators, `You better listen to us, we have clout,' they'll say, `Not really.'"

"If DeStefano doesn't win the primary," acknowledges Jerry Brown, "labor may be exposed as a paper tiger."

On the other hand, even a loss could prove a long-term benefit for labor, argues one union activist supporting the DeStefano effort: It could serve as a "wake-up call" to "prompt us to get our own act together" and strengthen organizing efforts.

That's why so much rests on labor's gamble in this campaign. Thanks to a combination of successful national Republican assaults and labor's own mistakes, unions have lost tremendous ground in the past two decades. Whether you agree with their positions or tactics or not, that hurts our state and our nation. Organized labor provides the only semblance of a balance in state and national legislatures to the interests of corporate America. It offers the strongest organized voice for livable wages and the social safety net, for health insurance and pension protection.

Yes, unions are taking a big gamble next week. If they prevail on Aug. 8 and in November, they will have new clout in Hartford. When you need a revival, it may be worth taking that kind of risk, tsunami or no tsunami.