Labor's entitlement state.

• Author: Bresler, Robert J.
• Position: STATE OF THE NATION

AT THE ANNUAL EXECUTIVE COUNCIL meeting in Las Vegas, AFL-CIO Pres. John Sweeney won a major battle within the ranks of labor. He faced down a challenge from the Teamsters Union and the Service Employees International Union to devote a substantial proportion of the AFL-CIO budget to organizing nonunion employees. Less than 10% of all private sector employees are unionized. Sweeney's prevailing view was that labor should put a majority of its resources into political activity, most, of course, in support of Democrats.

Sweeney's allies in the labor movement represent public sector employees, which have direct interest in the success of the Democratic Party and the growth of government. Teachers and other public service employees feast on higher taxes and government monopolies of social services. It would be hard to call most public school teachers and government employees poor, or even working class. While Sweeney and his minions certainly give lip service to organizing workers at the lower rungs of the economic ladder, their money goes elsewhere.

This represents not only a shift in the thinking of the labor movement, once the hope of struggling blue collar workers, but of the Democratic Party. The liberal rhetoric of compassion for the poor and pillory of Republicans as tools of the rich has not changed since the days of Franklin D. Roosevelt. What is different, however, is the reality beneath such rhetoric. The interests of poor unorganized workers have become secondary to the expansion of government.

Indeed, the Democrats support programs that assist the poor such as Head Start, food stamps, and Medicaid, but so do many Republicans. What drives the Democrats is the desire to expand government entitlements and services to the middle class. The more services government provides for the middle class, the greater will be the demand for government. As the party of government, Democrats win; as the representatives of public sector workers, Sweeney's AFL-CIO wins as well.

This defines the nature of much contemporary partisan political conflict. When Pres. George W. Bush talks of the ownership society, he is throwing down the gauntlet to the Democrats and their labor allies. If individuals are allowed to control their retirement plans, educational choices, and medical plans, the state and its employees are left with less to say and even less to do. The march of government entitlements to the middle class makes Bush's task extremely...