In this morning’s Boston Herald, Thomas Grillo reports that Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, is telling Governor Patrick and other elected officials that, “labor support for a Democrat is no longer guaranteed.”
Of course, that statement assumes that labor support for Democrats previously had been guaranteed. Personally, I’m not so sure that’s true. Perhaps labor leadership support for Democrats had been guaranteed (translation: funding, man hours, phone banks), but what about the votes? Does labor leadership in Massachusetts still accurately represent the voting power of its membership? Or are union workers more likely to be independent and open-minded on Election Day?
Obviously I can’t provide definitive answers to these questions, but a look at last month’s election (aside from the many personal anecdotes I could recount about labor friends who absolutely do not vote for Democrats), may offer some clues about the waning influence of labor leadership in Massachusetts.
AFL-CIO President Bob Haynes endorsing Martha Coakley for Senate
In today’s Herald story, it is incorrectly reported that the AFL-CIO supported Scott Brown during the Senate campaign. In fact, the group unanimously endorsed Coakley in December (not sure if this an error by the Herald or revisionist history by the AFL-CIO), with Haynes telling reporters:
“This election has been all about working families. That’s who the late Senator Kennedy spent his life fighting for. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO is proud to stand with Martha Coakley because of her proven record of fighting for working families and because of her career of public service…The Massachusetts AFL-CIO will work hard during this short campaign to add Martha’s voice, values, and talents to the U.S. Senate.”
But did “working families” buy that argument? Unfortunately, there was no exit polling in Massachusetts on Election Day, so it is virtually impossible to assign demographic data to Brown and Coakley voters.
With that in mind, I went back to the poll released by Suffolk University on January 14, 2010 (five days before the election), to take a look at the cross-tabs on union households. The numbers were pretty interesting, even if the sample size was relatively small (union households made up just 22% of respondents – 110 households).
According to Suffolk, 42% of union households are registered as Democrats, and just 10% as Republicans. However, a near majority (48%) of those households are unenrolled, an even higher number than non-union households (45%).
The numbers on Governor Patrick were a bit strange. He had higher favorables (44-40) among union households, but also higher unfavorables (52-50). However, if those union families were more favorable to the Governor as a person, they do not like him as Governor.
Just 35% of union households approve of the job Patrick is doing in the corner office, while a whopping 59% disapproved. Only 39% of union respondents think Massachusetts is on the right track, while 55% say we’re on the wrong track. A mammoth 87% of union households do not think the recession is over in Massachusetts (the number among non-union households was actually higher at 90%, so maybe the the economic stimulus did get some union workers back to work).
Perhaps a worse sign for Governor Patrick: 52% of union households still approve of the job President Obama is doing. So if they are not blaming the President for the continued recession…
All of this brings me back to my original point (or so I hope). If the Suffolk poll results are representative of union households in general, the labor movement already doesn’t support Governor Patrick. So why should he care if the AFL-CIO begins making threats?
The labor group unanimously endorsed Coakley in December, but the Suffolk poll in January showed that union households were planning to vote for Brown over Coakley by a margin of 53%-45%. That number, recorded five days before the polls opened, was actually higher than non-union households, which were planning to vote for Brown at that time by a margin of 49%-46%.
Is the AFL-CIO crying wolf?
Haynes invoked the name of Senator Kennedy in his endorsement of Coakley, but even the Kennedy mystique appears to have worn off for union workers. The Suffolk poll asked if the endorsement of Vicki and Joe Kennedy III had any impact on the vote of respondents. Among union households, 22% said it made them more likely to vote for Coakley, but 30% actually said the Kennedy endorsement made them less likely to vote for Coakley and 43% said the endorsement had no impact.
On the AFL-CIO website, the group highlights statistics the Feds released in January that showed the number of union workers in Massachusetts actually on the rise. Unfortunately, there is no demographic data to go along with the overall numbers. I wonder who the new members are, and what their politics might be.
As you can see on the AFL-CIO website, it’s current leaders are overwhelmingly male, white, and older. Many of them were probably reared in the old labor machine politics that ensured union members voted Democratic. As a result, the AFL-CIO continues to dominate elected officials in Massachusetts, especially Democrats, and make threats like the latest today: “Democrats better get in-line or labor leaders may not give their support.”
But what if they have no support to give? Sooner or later, Democratic officials are going to stop running when labor cries wolf, especially if they can clearly see the sheep voting for that wolf.
(Update: An astute reader pointed me to this article in the Wall Street Journal that I somehow missed, which more or less validates my entire argument. Eric Ferhnstrom even delivers the money quote, noting that there is a “huge disconnect” between union leaders and their members.)
While the AFL-CIO, as an organization, endorsed Coakley, the organization ran a telephone poll on election night that showed their own membership voted for Brown over Coakley 49-46%:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704423204575017690900226982.html
That portion of the Herald article is poorly-worded, but their statement is correct.
I somehow missed that story during my post-kennedyseat recovery, but it does reinforce my argument that labor is already not supporting Democrats. I will update the post in the morning. Thanks!
53% on the enrolled Democrats who had Independent leanings during the Reagan election , had no opinion of what the 47% of the enrolled Republicans were doing to mitigate the unions influence . So we then could conclude that Mitt Romney and Bill Weld shared a 40% favorability rating among Baptist Latin American men who have had dates with Irish Catholic woman. In summary it would be safe to say that logic can be established if you can pay the high price of polling. And more importantly only 1% of those reading the polls really understand them and care..( because they are getting paid to )….Wow..that was fun !!!