Obama's Labor Pains

Politics: Having seen its agenda falter, the AFL-CIO announces that in 2012 unions will scale back working in tandem with the Democratic Party and instead set up its own structures to support candidates.

In politics, hell hath no fury like a union scorned, and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is not amused by the performance, or the lack of it, by the Democratic leadership in Washington in general and President Obama in particular in crossing items off labor's wish list.

On Thursday, Trumka told reporters at a breakfast sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor that organized labor is preparing to go it alone in 2012, using its money and manpower to set up its own structures and support candidates of its choosing rather than funneling everything through Democratic Party coffers and accepting its dictates.

The union plans to create its own "super-PAC," a political action committee that will put its stamp of approval on ideologically pure candidates, fund and support them, and hold them directly accountable for their votes.

The failure to pass card-check, which would have ended the secret ballot in union certification elections, as well as free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, and lack of progress on other issues have not sat well with union leaders.

"During the campaign," Trumka said in June in an interview with Bloomberg, "he (Obama) made significant promises to do an inventory of the free-trade agreements" to be certain they protected workers' rights. "He's obviously forgotten that promise."

In that interview, Trumka said the unions will be "holding candidates on both sides accountable." Those candidates that unions consider "acquaintances," those who cross the proverbial aisle or otherwise compromise with Republicans won't receive support. "Those Democrats that are friends will get more" aid than in the past, Trumka said.

"Let's assume we spent $100 in the last election," Trumka said Thursday. "The day after election day we were no stronger than the day before. If we had spent that on creating a structure for working people that would be there year-round, then we are stronger."

Trumka and other union leaders have accused President Obama of letting Republicans and the Tea Party control both the debate and the agenda, both in Washington and on the campaign trail.

Certainly they are not pleased with the 2010 election results. Concern seems to be mounting that President Obama is more concerned with his own future than that of his party or the unions.

Unions spent heavily in the 2010 elections, yet failed to counter the Tea Party-driven GOP tsunami that retook the House and weakened the Democratic hold in the Senate. They also spent heavily in Wisconsin, only to see Gov. Scott Walker and a GOP legislature end Wisconsin unions' unimpeded access to the public trough.

Trumka apparently doesn't see 2012 prospects to be any brighter. He made it clear that the move will cost Democrats in terms of money and manpower almost immediately. The International Association of Fire Fighters has vowed to withhold money from federal races to concentrate on state-level campaigns. Trumka has said many in the labor movement are weighing whether to skip the Democrats' 2012 convention.

Asked if the AFL-CIO move is a blow to President Obama, Democratic pollster Doug Schoen told Newsmax TV: "Absolutely. Obama needs to get labor back, and I think he will be courting them furiously in the weeks to come." No doubt it will be at taxpayer expense.

In a way, Trumka and his unions are striving to mirror the Tea Party's success in organizing based on philosophy rather than party affiliation and then transforming that into political success. In 2012, the labor movement appears to have in mind its own version of hope and change.