Republicans Get It: Shrinking Unions

hen Karl Rove, George W. Bush’s key political advisor, was asked by the New Yorker magazine whether shrinking unions was a major goal of his administration, Rove replied, “Absolutely”.

In an article in the Washington Monthly that appeared just before the 2004 election, another key Bush ally, Grover Norquist, went into more detail.

Norquist, who is president of Americans For Tax Reform and serves on the boards of director of the American Conservative Union and the National Rifle Association, wrote that the “smaller government” Republican theme is really about attacking the pillars of the Democratic Party.

“Labor unions…cannot maintain their $8 billion in compulsory union dues without the laws that make such payments mandatory. Both wings of the dependency movement – those locked into welfare dependency and the bureaucrats who get paid well to manage others’ dependency (and make sure none of them get jobs and become Republicans) are wholly dependent on legislators halting further welfare reform. Big city political machines thrive on federal grants and state-granted powers. And the coercive utopians – the radical environmentalists, animal-rights activists, feminists, and others who would use state power to force on us tiny non-flushable toilets and cars too small to hold families, take away the circus and our pet cats, and otherwise impose more fussbudget impositions on our lives than Leviticus – all depend on government grants to use and misuse federal and state power.”

“Shrinking the government workforce” also has a direct political benefit, Norquist wrote, because it “tends to be 10 percent more Democrat and less Republican.”

“Meanwhile, four more years of GOP control means four more years where labor laws are not changed to force workers to pay dues to join unions they don’t wish to join. Twenty-two states have Right to Work laws to limit compulsory unionism; that number will grow, and the decline of labor unions from 33 percent of the workforce in the 1950’s to 20 percent in 1980 to 13 percent today will continue. Every worker who doesn’t join the union is another worker who doesn’t pay $500 a year to organized labor’s political machine.”

The individualization of health and retirement benefits, trumpeted as being about creating an “opportunity society,” is also about politics, Norquist wrote.

“Four more years of President Bush will also accelerate one of the most important demographic changes in America over the past 20 years: the number of Americans who own stock. In 1980, only 20 percent of adults owned stocks in mutual funds, 401ks, IRAs and direct contribution pensions. Today, that number is over 60 percent and growing. Bush wants to create Retirement Savings Accounts to allow every American to sock away up to $5,000 for retirement tax-free; similarly, the present has proposed Lifetime Savings Accounts allowing Americans to save $7,500 for education, housing, or health costs during their working lives. Every American who owns his own mutual fund is decreasingly susceptible to the siren call of class warfare. (How did Dick Gephardt do this primary season?) According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, if you own $5000 in stock you are 18 percent less likely to be a Democrat and more likely to be a Republican. Every demographic group, including race, gender, age, and income, becomes more Republican with stock ownership. Four more years of more and bigger individual retirement accounts, health savings accounts, RSAs, and LSAs means four more years of more Republicans and fewer Democrats.”

Right-wing organizers like Norquist understand the political impact of shrinking union membership and destroying hard-won union benefits. It is up to progressives to counter that strategy by helping more workers join unions and by defending health coverage, pensions, Social Security, Medicare, and other major achievements of the progressive movement.