(no subject)
Gay marriage advocates in California are saying they are probably not going to try to overturn Prop. 8 in the next general election, scheduled for 18 months from now. They have consulted "fellow major No on 8 donors" and political consultants, who advise against it. They have looked at the polls, which "really haven't moved at all" since November. And no one believes that they can mount an organized campaign to overturn Prop. 8 in 18 months; in fact, the Courage Campaign said that any effort which might be mounted would be "chaos". "[S]everal major donors seemed skeptical that there was enough time" to get organized. A new coalition of gay rights groups, Prepare to Prevail, announced that any anit-Prop. 8 effort "would be rushed and risky." They declared that they are not confident gay rights advocates could win. NGLTF characterized any effort which might be made in the next 18 months "slapdash", "based on wishful thinking" and full of "rosy scenarios". The Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, a frequent big-money donor to gay rights causes, said that winning wasn't possible so long as "people are being bombarded with lies." Another big-money gay rights donor declared support for gay marriage would have to rise above 60 percent before any new effort could be made. (Public support is currently in the mid-40s.)
Only grass-roots groups representing your average gay person were "vocal in support of a quick return to the polls."
Right-wing homophobes laughed at the timidity and caution of gay rights advocates. "The other side has said they will not move forward with an initiative until they are sure they can win. That day is not going to come."
* * * * *
Me? I say you go for it right now. The troops are mobilized now. The momentum elsewhere is going your way.
Consider this: When courts rule in favor of gay marriage and the next election is two years off, voters have two years to get used to it. This means that it's much harder for anti-gay marriage foes to predict that the sky is falling, because it hasn't caved in for two years. So in California, voters are going to have two years to see how much "damage" no marriage is causing to gays. How much "damage" do you think is going to occurr> I say: Not much. Their kids aren't living in poverty in the street, their "marriage-like" relationships are still holding on (no break-ups, no nasty court battles, no "divorces"), they haven't been denied health care or legal services. Eh....so why overturn the ban?
And does anyone think the Mormon Church's strength is going to decline in two years? Or will it just get stronger? What about over four years? Does anyone think the Mormons and ultra-conservative blacks and Hispanics (who voted overwhelmingly for Prop. 8) are going to stop preaching against it over two years? What about over four years? I think the foes of gay rights just get stronger. Meanwhile, idealistic young gay activists see their rights "betrayed" by back-room-dealing "gay leaders" who won't fight for them and won't get moving because they took the advice of "political consultants" and ultra-rich homosexual "money people" tell them "caution, caution..." (Harvey Milk, call your office.)
Consider, too, this historic event from 1998: Proposition 226.
In 1995, California's Republican Governor Pete Wilson -- then in his second term, following a walloping of the Democratic State Treasurer Kathleen Brown (Jerry Brown's daughter) in elections the previous November -- pushed a school voucher initiative as political payback to labor unions. The initiative was defeated because the California Teachers Association levied a special dues assessment on its members to build a fund to defeat the measure. Governor Wilson also pushed for a change in the state constitution which would have given him more control over the state budget process. Again, CTA dues were used to defeat the initiative. (Federal and state law prohibit the expenditure of union dues for donations to the political campaigns of individuals. Union dues may be spent to educate members about issues, including how specific candidates voted or what candidates support or don't support -- but the ads must explicitly avoid saying "vote for X." Neither federal nor state law prohibits the expenditure of union dues on lobbying -- and lobbying is defined as political advertising for or against ballot initiatives, referenda, and propositions.) In 1996, labor backed a $45 million effort supporting the Democratic Party (in general, not for specific candidates). Although Congress failed to fall into Democratic hands, the California Assembly switched from Republican to Democratic. Once again, this political push was funded from union members' dues.
Republicans were outraged. In 1997, a trio of Orange County Republican activists (who, by the way, had been pushing for school vouchers) decided to back a statewide ballot initiative (Proposition 226) requiring signed consent before union dues could be diverted to political campaigns.
Nearly all unions obtain dues in the same way: When a person first becomes employed at a workplace which is unionized, the person is given a choice to join the union and pay full dues or refuse to join the union and pay "maintenance of contract" fees. Why are you forced to pay money to the union? Because of the "free rider problem." Let's say a workplace is unionized. Everyone but me pays dues to organize the union, pay union staff, and get a great contract that raises wages by 10 percent. Will the employer give everyone but me a 10 percent wage increase? No. It's much easier for the employer to give me that pay rise, too. But since I didn't pay union dues, I get a "free ride." I get all the benefits, and incur none of the costs. The incentive, therefore, is for everyone to try to get a free ride. But if that happens, no union will ever form, no contract will ever be negotiated, and no pay rise will occur. The community of workers does not benefit. Worse, union supporters will begin to engage in "eternal organizing campaigns" -- distracting workers from their jobs, constantly attacking the employer, the employer will divert money to anti-union efforts, labor peace is never secured, etc. "Free rider problems" are common in many areas of public policy, everything from environmental law ("why do my taxes go for something I don't support?") to taxes for public schools ("I don't have kids, why do I pay for this?").
To secure labor peace, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935. The NLRA recognizes the free-rider problem, so it permited workers to be "forced to join the union." But the Supreme Court recognized (rightly so) that this could violate a person's free association and free speech rights. The Supreme Court balanced the free-rider problem against the First Amendment rights of workers in Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735 (1988). The solution the Court fashioned was that workers could be forced to pay dues to support collective bargaining goals, but not forced to pay dues that support other goals (such as lobbying, political activity, social messages, etc.). Very few people actually exercise their "Beck rights," though.
So how do unions collect those dues? They could around every payday and collect dues physically from members. But that's a big waste of time, energy, staff, and money. Instead, most unions negotiate a "check-off" provision in their contracts. These "automatic dues check-off" provisions require the employer to automatically deduct union dues/"maintenance of contract" dues from workers' paychecks each payday. The employer then transmits the dues to the union treasury on a specified schedule.
From the GOP's viewpoint, this is outrageous: Most union members don't know anything about their union (they say), don't participate in union elections (they claim), don't pay attention to union dues decisions (they warn), etc. Thus, a small number of activist delegates to a union assembly can increase dues and assign the income to some political campaign, and essentially "force" conservative union voters to back liberal causes. Members may want dues going to political purposes, Republicans admit, but who decides which political purposes are backed? "Fat-cat union bureaucrats in Washington." (That there is no evidence that these people are conservatives, or that they don't pay attention to union democracy issues, or that union members do not have extensive control over their headquarters staff is irrelevant.) Worse, the employer -- and the assumption is most employers are conservative -- is "forced" by the contract to "back the liberal political effort" by automatically deducting these union dues.
By elminating automatic dues check-off, unions would be crippled. They would have to spend most of their time collecting dues, not spending them. They wouldn't be able to support liberal political causes, or liberal politicians.
"Paycheck protection," the GOP cried. "Paycheck deception," the unions said.
Governor Wilson became Prop. 226's statewide chairman. It wsa payback time for the unions...
In February 1998, when Prop. 226 was put on the ballot, public opinion surveys showed overwhelming support for Prop. 226. The Washington Post/ABC News poll reported that 82 percent of the public supported the initiative. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll reported 72 percent of the general public supported it. Appallingly, the Field poll reported that 66 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of union members were in favor of Prop. 226.
Jesus Holy God. When 70 percent of your own members are in favor of the initiative, you might as well give up. Right? Hell, if just 54 percent of California voters want a ban on gay marriage, you give up. Certainly the unions, facing 82 percent public support for Prop. 226 and 70 percent support among their own members, should give up, too. Right?
Wrong.
The public and union member support for Prop. 226 wasn't bad enough. Unions themselves faced utter chaos in California.
The labor movement's strategy was to rely heavily on local unions to contact members. Local union officers knew their members personally (they worked alongside them, after all), they knew the issues, they knew the temper and feelings of their members, etc. The assumption was that Prop. 226 could be beaten if national staff were flown in to California to bolster the local union leaders and members. So every single national union with a local in California sent national staff to California to help their state affiliates.
What the national staff found was sickening: Local unions didn't even know who their members were; membership lists were often four to six years out of date. Most local unions which did have relatively good membership lists had mailing addresses for their members, but the mailing address was incorrect 40 percent of the time. Unions which had good membership mailing lists rarely had telephone numbers or email addresses for their members. Only half of all local unions produced a monthly newsletter, attendance at monthly union meetings was generally below 5 percent, and voting in annual union elections below 25 percent. Internal polling showed that half of all union members did not even know they belonged to a union, or what that union's name was.
It got worse: Only a third of all local unions had a full-time, paid president. Only the largest 10 percent had any paid, full-time staff. With the exception of the teacher unions (NEA, AFT), almost none of the local unions had engaged in any political activity in the past 12 years -- not an endorsement, not a get-out-the-vote effort, not a political pamphlet. An appalling 75 percent of local unions collected just enough member dues to pay for a state union staff person to come in and negotiate their triennial contract, and not a penny more. Local unions expected their state or national staff to provide all other services for free.
The unions had to change things, fast. The first decision was to let the national AFL-CIO and the seven richest unions in the national federation (at the time, these were SEIU, AFT, AFSCME, the Teamsters, UFCW, UNITE HERE, and the Communications Workers) pour money into the "air war": They would go statewide with a super-aggressive campaign of TV and radio ads (especially radio, which reaches far more people than TV at much lower cost), mailings, fliers, pamphlets, and town forums. The very first AFL-CIO mailing would determine which postal addresses were good and which were bad, and the AFL-CIO would then funnel this information as fast as possible to the state and local unions in California. The AFL-CIO would also begin an active effort to meet with and educate opinion leaders in the state (newspaper editors and reporters, legislators, mayors, radio talk show hosts, religious leaders, civil rights leaders, social activists, environmentalists, etc.). They would not only educate them about what Prop. 226 meant for unions, but how a failure to defeat Prop. 266 would mean unions would have no more time, staff, or money to support these other organizations and their causes. Meanwhile, the seven richest unions would also poured money into a joint fund to assist state and local unions in California to rebuild their membership lists, hire staff, and engage in political outreach. Most of this money was aimed at the smaller unions (the Iron Workers, the Longshoremen, the Postal Workers, the Machinists, the Farm Workers, the Electrical Workers, the Bricklayers, the Operating Engineers, the Laborers, the Letter Carriers, the Office Professionals, the Transport Workers, the Painters, etc.). It excluded three larger, richer unions (the Auto Workers, Carpenters, and Steelworkers) who were not part of the "Rich Seven" but who did not need the assistance. Meanwhile, the "Rich Seven" also spent additional millions on their own local unions.
The campaign was urgent: Prop. 226 was on the June 1998 ballot. That was just four months away. A superb logistical, educational, outreach, and get-out-the-vote effort had to be devised and implemented in 15 weeks. The GOP had had a year to devise and implement its effort! Unions were on the defensive, big-time. And remember: Unions represent just 20 percent of all voters in California. Even if they managed to get every single last one of their own members to vote against Prop. 226, that would not be enough to win. Prop. 226 would still pass, 58-42.
The "air war" hit very hard in late February and March. But polls showed no movement at all by the end of March. In late March, after six weeks of internal organizing, local unions began their first wave of contacting their own members with pamphlets, fliers, union meetings, and telephone calls. Door-to-door canvassing tof union households began the first week of April. For the first eight weeks of the "air war," a piece of union mail was sent to every single union member throughout the state (one a week). In the last three weeks of April, 500,000 union members were contacted personally by phone, and hundreds of thousands had been talked to face-to-face. By the end of April, internal union polls showed a massive shift among union members: Less than 20 percent of union households now intended to vote for Prop. 226. (The Field Poll missed this shift: By late May, it was still predicting union voters would vote 80-20 in favor of Prop. 226.)
But there was still almost no movement among the general public. Prop. 226 was still ahead, 60-40, and the GOP was beginning its ad push.
Now, the AFL-CIO's effort had also included business leaders. They warned unionized businesses that if the business community backed the Prop. 226 effort and the initiative won, businesses could expect a wave of union organizing in California over the next two years that would make the Great Depression look like a third-grade election effort. Unions would be forced to re-run the Prop. 226 battle again and again and again, and they could only hope to win if they organized new members. Worse, existing unions would batter their employers relentlessly for the next two years, agitating tremendously against Prop. 226. The AFL-CIO was not stupid: They did not seek business opposition to Prop. 226. They merely asked business to stay neutral in the fight. This was a GOP-backed initiative, promoted by school voucher folks who hated teacher unions, the AFL-CIO told business leaders. Let the unions and the school voucher folks fight it out. Don't put in money.
Business stayed out of the fight. It was a huge monetary blow to the GOP.
In mid-May, the Field Poll showed Prop. 226 still leading, 55-45. Field predicted a blow-out win for the initiative in a month. But the union effort was just getting under way among the broader population. For the last week of April and first week of May, state and local unions in California had been training volunteer union members to go door-to-door in a "ground war." The goal was to get your neighbors to understand that you were a union member and proud of it. Then, you'd leave behind a pamphlet. No more than that. No conversations, no debates, nothing. Union organizers used the training techniques they utilized in unionization campaigns to train these volunteers, so they weren't starting from scratch.
The last two weeks of May saw the start of the "ground war." Internal AFL-CIO polls showed a shift occurring in liberal communities throughout the state, and in moderate areas like Los Angeles. Prop. 226 was losing ground. Tracking polls were conducted to probe whether voters' feelings for Prop. 226 were strong or weak. Polls were broken down by ZIP code: Where feelings were weak, the AFL-CIO would bombard voters with mailings about Prop. 226. The statewide labor bodies would ask public opinion leaders in these areas to rail against Prop. 226 at the same time that the mailings hit, and union members would do two days of door-to-door lit drops. The goal was to identify the weak supporters, and carve them away from the pro-Prop. 226 majority. And it began to work.
Unions also began to show their public support for the "No on 226" effort. The unions clearly understood two things. First, when your union president or co-worker asks you to support something, most people say "yes" even if they won't do it. They just don't want to offend your, they just don't want a fight. So they lie. Unions had to find a way to make members go public with their support. Once they'd gone public, unions knew from experience, they would tend to vote that support at the ballot box. Publicly supporting the unions was known as a "test" -- if you wore a button, you passed the test. It would be more difficult for you to vote against the union later. Progressively more public displays of support constituted stronger "tests." Pretty soon, even weak "No on 226" voters would be locked into strong support... Second, unions knew that they had to get the public on their side. That other 80 percent of voters had to support "No on 226." One of the ways you can do this is by having a neighbor (e.g., a union member) show their support for "No on 226." If your neighbors supported the "No on 226" effort, why shouldn't you? In fact, wouldn't you be hurting your neighbor by support Prop. 226?? Public shows of support created feelings of solidarity, showed that one side was winning (and everyone wants to be on the winning side!), and showed that the "No on 226" groups had a plan to win.
It also wasn't enough to have progressively stronger "tests." The union forces had show momentum. They had to devise a game plan to ratchet up their level of support week after week after week.
So that's just what the unions did. They instituted tests, and the tests got stronger throughout May. The first week of May was button-wearing week. The second week of May was red-ribbon-wearing week. The third week of May was wear-red-to-work/"No on 226" t-shirt week. Support for "No on Prop. 8" was demonstrable, visual. People who were wavering because they didn't know the issue well, or who wanted to be with the majority, saw that the anti-Prop. 226 forces were their friends, colleagues, co-workers. "Going public" with one's stand on Prop. 226 was a major factor in influencing these wavering voters and pulling them on to the union side. The third week of May, an internal California Labor Federation poll showed that voters were split 50-50 on Prop. 226, and that the unions had momentum.
The election was June 3.
The week before the election, the unions pulled out the big guns. Mass rallies began the last week of May, leading to extensive free press coverage. The "air war" saturated the radio and television waves. Huge, two-page, full-spread, signed petitions with photos appeared in local newspapers: Unions had asked members and non-members alike for their signature on petitions, with the signatures appearing in two-page ads in local newspapers the weekend before the election. In addition, Polaroid photos of signature-signers were taken (people signed their consent on forms!) and many photos were included in the ads for visual impact. These ads further showed that people were willing to take public, forceful stands against Prop. 226.
Prop. 226 was rejected 53-to-47 on June 3, 1998. Unions had taken a situation where 82 percent of the public and 70 percent of their own members were against them, and turned it completely around in just 15 weeks.
Now let's talk money: According to the State of California Secretary of State's office, which tracks political contributions to ballot referenda and initiatives, a grand total of $6,422,661 was raised by pro-Prop. 226 forces. A cringe-inducing 88.9 percent of it came in contributions larger than $10,000 (including the lone business defector -- California Restaurant Association, which gave a whopping $250,000). In other words, most of the "Yes on 226" money came from fat-cat donors, not individuals. It shows how little support the group had among voters in the end.
Unions, meanwhile, raised $24,840,395 -- only 24 percent of it coming from non-members. A $50,000 donation from a law firm, a $25,000 donation from a lawyers' association, $150,668 came from a group of attorneys that do business with unions, $45,430 came from a coalition of nonprofit organizations which support unions, and
$2,025,201 from six others (insurer, private individual, an investment company handling union pensions, the re-election campaign fund of Rep. Hilda Solis, and a political group devoted to progressive causes).
Business had two years to raise money. Unions did it in just 15 weeks.
Now, tell me again why Equality Campaign or the so-called "Courage Campaign" (which doesn't seem particularly courageous) can't get its act together in 18 months. Or why polls "which haven't moved since Election Day" (e.g., where 56 percent of voters are in favor of a ban on gay marriage) can't be turned around in 18 months.
Go on. Tell me.
Only grass-roots groups representing your average gay person were "vocal in support of a quick return to the polls."
Right-wing homophobes laughed at the timidity and caution of gay rights advocates. "The other side has said they will not move forward with an initiative until they are sure they can win. That day is not going to come."
* * * * *
Me? I say you go for it right now. The troops are mobilized now. The momentum elsewhere is going your way.
Consider this: When courts rule in favor of gay marriage and the next election is two years off, voters have two years to get used to it. This means that it's much harder for anti-gay marriage foes to predict that the sky is falling, because it hasn't caved in for two years. So in California, voters are going to have two years to see how much "damage" no marriage is causing to gays. How much "damage" do you think is going to occurr> I say: Not much. Their kids aren't living in poverty in the street, their "marriage-like" relationships are still holding on (no break-ups, no nasty court battles, no "divorces"), they haven't been denied health care or legal services. Eh....so why overturn the ban?
And does anyone think the Mormon Church's strength is going to decline in two years? Or will it just get stronger? What about over four years? Does anyone think the Mormons and ultra-conservative blacks and Hispanics (who voted overwhelmingly for Prop. 8) are going to stop preaching against it over two years? What about over four years? I think the foes of gay rights just get stronger. Meanwhile, idealistic young gay activists see their rights "betrayed" by back-room-dealing "gay leaders" who won't fight for them and won't get moving because they took the advice of "political consultants" and ultra-rich homosexual "money people" tell them "caution, caution..." (Harvey Milk, call your office.)
Consider, too, this historic event from 1998: Proposition 226.
In 1995, California's Republican Governor Pete Wilson -- then in his second term, following a walloping of the Democratic State Treasurer Kathleen Brown (Jerry Brown's daughter) in elections the previous November -- pushed a school voucher initiative as political payback to labor unions. The initiative was defeated because the California Teachers Association levied a special dues assessment on its members to build a fund to defeat the measure. Governor Wilson also pushed for a change in the state constitution which would have given him more control over the state budget process. Again, CTA dues were used to defeat the initiative. (Federal and state law prohibit the expenditure of union dues for donations to the political campaigns of individuals. Union dues may be spent to educate members about issues, including how specific candidates voted or what candidates support or don't support -- but the ads must explicitly avoid saying "vote for X." Neither federal nor state law prohibits the expenditure of union dues on lobbying -- and lobbying is defined as political advertising for or against ballot initiatives, referenda, and propositions.) In 1996, labor backed a $45 million effort supporting the Democratic Party (in general, not for specific candidates). Although Congress failed to fall into Democratic hands, the California Assembly switched from Republican to Democratic. Once again, this political push was funded from union members' dues.
Republicans were outraged. In 1997, a trio of Orange County Republican activists (who, by the way, had been pushing for school vouchers) decided to back a statewide ballot initiative (Proposition 226) requiring signed consent before union dues could be diverted to political campaigns.
Nearly all unions obtain dues in the same way: When a person first becomes employed at a workplace which is unionized, the person is given a choice to join the union and pay full dues or refuse to join the union and pay "maintenance of contract" fees. Why are you forced to pay money to the union? Because of the "free rider problem." Let's say a workplace is unionized. Everyone but me pays dues to organize the union, pay union staff, and get a great contract that raises wages by 10 percent. Will the employer give everyone but me a 10 percent wage increase? No. It's much easier for the employer to give me that pay rise, too. But since I didn't pay union dues, I get a "free ride." I get all the benefits, and incur none of the costs. The incentive, therefore, is for everyone to try to get a free ride. But if that happens, no union will ever form, no contract will ever be negotiated, and no pay rise will occur. The community of workers does not benefit. Worse, union supporters will begin to engage in "eternal organizing campaigns" -- distracting workers from their jobs, constantly attacking the employer, the employer will divert money to anti-union efforts, labor peace is never secured, etc. "Free rider problems" are common in many areas of public policy, everything from environmental law ("why do my taxes go for something I don't support?") to taxes for public schools ("I don't have kids, why do I pay for this?").
To secure labor peace, Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935. The NLRA recognizes the free-rider problem, so it permited workers to be "forced to join the union." But the Supreme Court recognized (rightly so) that this could violate a person's free association and free speech rights. The Supreme Court balanced the free-rider problem against the First Amendment rights of workers in Communications Workers of America v. Beck, 487 U. S. 735 (1988). The solution the Court fashioned was that workers could be forced to pay dues to support collective bargaining goals, but not forced to pay dues that support other goals (such as lobbying, political activity, social messages, etc.). Very few people actually exercise their "Beck rights," though.
So how do unions collect those dues? They could around every payday and collect dues physically from members. But that's a big waste of time, energy, staff, and money. Instead, most unions negotiate a "check-off" provision in their contracts. These "automatic dues check-off" provisions require the employer to automatically deduct union dues/"maintenance of contract" dues from workers' paychecks each payday. The employer then transmits the dues to the union treasury on a specified schedule.
From the GOP's viewpoint, this is outrageous: Most union members don't know anything about their union (they say), don't participate in union elections (they claim), don't pay attention to union dues decisions (they warn), etc. Thus, a small number of activist delegates to a union assembly can increase dues and assign the income to some political campaign, and essentially "force" conservative union voters to back liberal causes. Members may want dues going to political purposes, Republicans admit, but who decides which political purposes are backed? "Fat-cat union bureaucrats in Washington." (That there is no evidence that these people are conservatives, or that they don't pay attention to union democracy issues, or that union members do not have extensive control over their headquarters staff is irrelevant.) Worse, the employer -- and the assumption is most employers are conservative -- is "forced" by the contract to "back the liberal political effort" by automatically deducting these union dues.
By elminating automatic dues check-off, unions would be crippled. They would have to spend most of their time collecting dues, not spending them. They wouldn't be able to support liberal political causes, or liberal politicians.
"Paycheck protection," the GOP cried. "Paycheck deception," the unions said.
Governor Wilson became Prop. 226's statewide chairman. It wsa payback time for the unions...
In February 1998, when Prop. 226 was put on the ballot, public opinion surveys showed overwhelming support for Prop. 226. The Washington Post/ABC News poll reported that 82 percent of the public supported the initiative. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll reported 72 percent of the general public supported it. Appallingly, the Field poll reported that 66 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of union members were in favor of Prop. 226.
Jesus Holy God. When 70 percent of your own members are in favor of the initiative, you might as well give up. Right? Hell, if just 54 percent of California voters want a ban on gay marriage, you give up. Certainly the unions, facing 82 percent public support for Prop. 226 and 70 percent support among their own members, should give up, too. Right?
Wrong.
The public and union member support for Prop. 226 wasn't bad enough. Unions themselves faced utter chaos in California.
The labor movement's strategy was to rely heavily on local unions to contact members. Local union officers knew their members personally (they worked alongside them, after all), they knew the issues, they knew the temper and feelings of their members, etc. The assumption was that Prop. 226 could be beaten if national staff were flown in to California to bolster the local union leaders and members. So every single national union with a local in California sent national staff to California to help their state affiliates.
What the national staff found was sickening: Local unions didn't even know who their members were; membership lists were often four to six years out of date. Most local unions which did have relatively good membership lists had mailing addresses for their members, but the mailing address was incorrect 40 percent of the time. Unions which had good membership mailing lists rarely had telephone numbers or email addresses for their members. Only half of all local unions produced a monthly newsletter, attendance at monthly union meetings was generally below 5 percent, and voting in annual union elections below 25 percent. Internal polling showed that half of all union members did not even know they belonged to a union, or what that union's name was.
It got worse: Only a third of all local unions had a full-time, paid president. Only the largest 10 percent had any paid, full-time staff. With the exception of the teacher unions (NEA, AFT), almost none of the local unions had engaged in any political activity in the past 12 years -- not an endorsement, not a get-out-the-vote effort, not a political pamphlet. An appalling 75 percent of local unions collected just enough member dues to pay for a state union staff person to come in and negotiate their triennial contract, and not a penny more. Local unions expected their state or national staff to provide all other services for free.
The unions had to change things, fast. The first decision was to let the national AFL-CIO and the seven richest unions in the national federation (at the time, these were SEIU, AFT, AFSCME, the Teamsters, UFCW, UNITE HERE, and the Communications Workers) pour money into the "air war": They would go statewide with a super-aggressive campaign of TV and radio ads (especially radio, which reaches far more people than TV at much lower cost), mailings, fliers, pamphlets, and town forums. The very first AFL-CIO mailing would determine which postal addresses were good and which were bad, and the AFL-CIO would then funnel this information as fast as possible to the state and local unions in California. The AFL-CIO would also begin an active effort to meet with and educate opinion leaders in the state (newspaper editors and reporters, legislators, mayors, radio talk show hosts, religious leaders, civil rights leaders, social activists, environmentalists, etc.). They would not only educate them about what Prop. 226 meant for unions, but how a failure to defeat Prop. 266 would mean unions would have no more time, staff, or money to support these other organizations and their causes. Meanwhile, the seven richest unions would also poured money into a joint fund to assist state and local unions in California to rebuild their membership lists, hire staff, and engage in political outreach. Most of this money was aimed at the smaller unions (the Iron Workers, the Longshoremen, the Postal Workers, the Machinists, the Farm Workers, the Electrical Workers, the Bricklayers, the Operating Engineers, the Laborers, the Letter Carriers, the Office Professionals, the Transport Workers, the Painters, etc.). It excluded three larger, richer unions (the Auto Workers, Carpenters, and Steelworkers) who were not part of the "Rich Seven" but who did not need the assistance. Meanwhile, the "Rich Seven" also spent additional millions on their own local unions.
The campaign was urgent: Prop. 226 was on the June 1998 ballot. That was just four months away. A superb logistical, educational, outreach, and get-out-the-vote effort had to be devised and implemented in 15 weeks. The GOP had had a year to devise and implement its effort! Unions were on the defensive, big-time. And remember: Unions represent just 20 percent of all voters in California. Even if they managed to get every single last one of their own members to vote against Prop. 226, that would not be enough to win. Prop. 226 would still pass, 58-42.
The "air war" hit very hard in late February and March. But polls showed no movement at all by the end of March. In late March, after six weeks of internal organizing, local unions began their first wave of contacting their own members with pamphlets, fliers, union meetings, and telephone calls. Door-to-door canvassing tof union households began the first week of April. For the first eight weeks of the "air war," a piece of union mail was sent to every single union member throughout the state (one a week). In the last three weeks of April, 500,000 union members were contacted personally by phone, and hundreds of thousands had been talked to face-to-face. By the end of April, internal union polls showed a massive shift among union members: Less than 20 percent of union households now intended to vote for Prop. 226. (The Field Poll missed this shift: By late May, it was still predicting union voters would vote 80-20 in favor of Prop. 226.)
But there was still almost no movement among the general public. Prop. 226 was still ahead, 60-40, and the GOP was beginning its ad push.
Now, the AFL-CIO's effort had also included business leaders. They warned unionized businesses that if the business community backed the Prop. 226 effort and the initiative won, businesses could expect a wave of union organizing in California over the next two years that would make the Great Depression look like a third-grade election effort. Unions would be forced to re-run the Prop. 226 battle again and again and again, and they could only hope to win if they organized new members. Worse, existing unions would batter their employers relentlessly for the next two years, agitating tremendously against Prop. 226. The AFL-CIO was not stupid: They did not seek business opposition to Prop. 226. They merely asked business to stay neutral in the fight. This was a GOP-backed initiative, promoted by school voucher folks who hated teacher unions, the AFL-CIO told business leaders. Let the unions and the school voucher folks fight it out. Don't put in money.
Business stayed out of the fight. It was a huge monetary blow to the GOP.
In mid-May, the Field Poll showed Prop. 226 still leading, 55-45. Field predicted a blow-out win for the initiative in a month. But the union effort was just getting under way among the broader population. For the last week of April and first week of May, state and local unions in California had been training volunteer union members to go door-to-door in a "ground war." The goal was to get your neighbors to understand that you were a union member and proud of it. Then, you'd leave behind a pamphlet. No more than that. No conversations, no debates, nothing. Union organizers used the training techniques they utilized in unionization campaigns to train these volunteers, so they weren't starting from scratch.
The last two weeks of May saw the start of the "ground war." Internal AFL-CIO polls showed a shift occurring in liberal communities throughout the state, and in moderate areas like Los Angeles. Prop. 226 was losing ground. Tracking polls were conducted to probe whether voters' feelings for Prop. 226 were strong or weak. Polls were broken down by ZIP code: Where feelings were weak, the AFL-CIO would bombard voters with mailings about Prop. 226. The statewide labor bodies would ask public opinion leaders in these areas to rail against Prop. 226 at the same time that the mailings hit, and union members would do two days of door-to-door lit drops. The goal was to identify the weak supporters, and carve them away from the pro-Prop. 226 majority. And it began to work.
Unions also began to show their public support for the "No on 226" effort. The unions clearly understood two things. First, when your union president or co-worker asks you to support something, most people say "yes" even if they won't do it. They just don't want to offend your, they just don't want a fight. So they lie. Unions had to find a way to make members go public with their support. Once they'd gone public, unions knew from experience, they would tend to vote that support at the ballot box. Publicly supporting the unions was known as a "test" -- if you wore a button, you passed the test. It would be more difficult for you to vote against the union later. Progressively more public displays of support constituted stronger "tests." Pretty soon, even weak "No on 226" voters would be locked into strong support... Second, unions knew that they had to get the public on their side. That other 80 percent of voters had to support "No on 226." One of the ways you can do this is by having a neighbor (e.g., a union member) show their support for "No on 226." If your neighbors supported the "No on 226" effort, why shouldn't you? In fact, wouldn't you be hurting your neighbor by support Prop. 226?? Public shows of support created feelings of solidarity, showed that one side was winning (and everyone wants to be on the winning side!), and showed that the "No on 226" groups had a plan to win.
It also wasn't enough to have progressively stronger "tests." The union forces had show momentum. They had to devise a game plan to ratchet up their level of support week after week after week.
So that's just what the unions did. They instituted tests, and the tests got stronger throughout May. The first week of May was button-wearing week. The second week of May was red-ribbon-wearing week. The third week of May was wear-red-to-work/"No on 226" t-shirt week. Support for "No on Prop. 8" was demonstrable, visual. People who were wavering because they didn't know the issue well, or who wanted to be with the majority, saw that the anti-Prop. 226 forces were their friends, colleagues, co-workers. "Going public" with one's stand on Prop. 226 was a major factor in influencing these wavering voters and pulling them on to the union side. The third week of May, an internal California Labor Federation poll showed that voters were split 50-50 on Prop. 226, and that the unions had momentum.
The election was June 3.
The week before the election, the unions pulled out the big guns. Mass rallies began the last week of May, leading to extensive free press coverage. The "air war" saturated the radio and television waves. Huge, two-page, full-spread, signed petitions with photos appeared in local newspapers: Unions had asked members and non-members alike for their signature on petitions, with the signatures appearing in two-page ads in local newspapers the weekend before the election. In addition, Polaroid photos of signature-signers were taken (people signed their consent on forms!) and many photos were included in the ads for visual impact. These ads further showed that people were willing to take public, forceful stands against Prop. 226.
Prop. 226 was rejected 53-to-47 on June 3, 1998. Unions had taken a situation where 82 percent of the public and 70 percent of their own members were against them, and turned it completely around in just 15 weeks.
Now let's talk money: According to the State of California Secretary of State's office, which tracks political contributions to ballot referenda and initiatives, a grand total of $6,422,661 was raised by pro-Prop. 226 forces. A cringe-inducing 88.9 percent of it came in contributions larger than $10,000 (including the lone business defector -- California Restaurant Association, which gave a whopping $250,000). In other words, most of the "Yes on 226" money came from fat-cat donors, not individuals. It shows how little support the group had among voters in the end.
Unions, meanwhile, raised $24,840,395 -- only 24 percent of it coming from non-members. A $50,000 donation from a law firm, a $25,000 donation from a lawyers' association, $150,668 came from a group of attorneys that do business with unions, $45,430 came from a coalition of nonprofit organizations which support unions, and
$2,025,201 from six others (insurer, private individual, an investment company handling union pensions, the re-election campaign fund of Rep. Hilda Solis, and a political group devoted to progressive causes).
Business had two years to raise money. Unions did it in just 15 weeks.
Now, tell me again why Equality Campaign or the so-called "Courage Campaign" (which doesn't seem particularly courageous) can't get its act together in 18 months. Or why polls "which haven't moved since Election Day" (e.g., where 56 percent of voters are in favor of a ban on gay marriage) can't be turned around in 18 months.
Go on. Tell me.