 Union bosses are always trying to make it easier for unions to organize and
harder for workers to opt out of paying dues. But that’s only the start of
AFL-CIO’s wishlist.
How are AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka and other union leaders deciding who’s
worthy of the unions’ activist machinery and vast campaign funds for 2016?
AFL-CIO is using Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz’s “Rewriting the
Rules of the American Economy: An Agenda for Growth and Shared Prosperity” as a
guide.
In his report, Stiglitz — a winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics — called for
more federal spending and higher taxes on the rich to combat “income inequality”
and build on “the innovative legacy of the New Deal.”
“Inequality has been a choice, and it is within our power to reverse it,”
Stiglitz asserted. “If anything, a number of redistributive policies can lower
net inequality and drive more durable growth.”
Stiglitz’s report listed a number of unfulfilled goals shared by AFL-CIO, whose
leaders helped ram Obamacare through Congress but have been somewhat
disappointed with President Obama’s time in office.
Proposals in the report — few accompanied by cost estimates — would make Obama’s
$830 billion “stimulus” spending bill look like a drop in a bucket.
Many “Rewriting the Rules” policy prescriptions would be a boon to AFL-CIO’s two
largest affiliates, the American Federation of Teachers and American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees.
Stiglitz suggested taxpayers should pay for universal preschool, universal
Medicare coverage, subsidized child care and more subsidization of college
education.
He recommended increased infrastructure and public transportation spending, too,
which would help AFL-CIO’s construction affiliates siphon more union dues from
more workers.
Other Stiglitz suggestions, including a national minimum wage hike and universal
paid sick leave, would make contract negotiations easier for union bosses by
putting sweeping new mandates on employers.
Stiglitz was a featured speaker at the July meeting where AFL-CIO interviewed
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee and Democratic candidates
Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley and Jim Webb.
“Professor Stiglitz’s voice was a critical presence at the AFL-CIO Executive
Council meeting last month,” AFL-CIO senior press secretary Josh Goldstein told
Watchdog.org via email.
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 “The ideas in his Rewriting the Rules report are part of the
guiding principles that drove discussions with five presidential
candidates and will be a central part of the measuring stick we use
in 2016,” Goldstein said.
AFT has already endorsed Hillary Clinton, but endorsements from
other AFL-CIO members — and AFL-CIO itself — are still up for grabs.
RELATED: Teacher unions push progressive agenda, but many members
aren’t on board
Photo: Heritage Foundation
Photo: Heritage Foundation
Heritage Foundation research fellow Curtis Dubay
Curtis Dubay, a tax and economic policy researcher at the
conservative Heritage Foundation, sees nothing new in the latest
left-wing economic report embraced by AFL-CIO.
“The solutions are so boring. They’re rote, liberal policies that
they’ve always wanted no matter what the situation is,” Dubay told
Watchdog.org. “They’re just using ‘inequality’ as a veneer to push
policies they’ve always wanted.”
He noted that Stiglitz’s tax proposals resembled recommendations
from left-wing French economist Thomas Piketty.
“Instead of trying to help those in the middle and lower classes
rise up, these policies would hurt those at the top to bring them
down,” Dubay said.
“And in the process of bringing them down, they’re going to hurt
those below by just eviscerating opportunity,” he continued. “This
will have the exact opposite result as what AFL-CIO leaders are
saying they want.”
Trumka told Vox.com the coalition will wait for affiliated unions to
make their presidential endorsements before an official AFL-CIO
decision is reached.
With labor support for Sanders surging in early July, Trumka warned
state and local AFL-CIO chapters not to make presidential
endorsements. Though he’s seeking the Democratic nomination, Sanders
is an avowed socialist.
Stiglitz’s “Rewriting the Rules” includes the same policy proposals
as New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s “Progressive Agenda to
Combat Income Inequality,” which itself resembles Sanders’s
presidential platform.
AFL-CIO “is more committed than ever to broad progressive policies,”
Trumka said in a press release announcing the July meeting with
candidates.
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