In These Times tells a very troubling story - authored by Jeff Schuhrke, and opening with the "nutshell" of the story:
As the congressional battle over President Biden’s domestic agenda reached a critical juncture last Thursday, some national labor leaders appeared to come down on the side of conservative Democrats aiming to stall or significantly downsize the proposed $3.5‑trillion budget reconciliation bill.
Yes, you read that correctly. Some labor leadership willing to decouple companion bills. Solidarity? For schmucks, apparently. You others go sulk? Suck eggs? Eat dirt unless you organize and pay dues, and perhaps gain "labor's" sympathy and support by doing that, perhaps not?
Before getting to detailed excerpting; related, perhaps, and perhaps not, a film title comes to mind, per a Wikipedia opening paragraph:
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (German: Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle; lit. Every Man for Himself and God Against All) is a 1974 West German drama film written and directed by Werner Herzog and starring Bruno Schleinstein (credited as Bruno S.) and Walter Ladengast.[2] The film closely follows the real story of foundling Kaspar Hauser, using the text of actual letters found with Hauser.
Can't say why that rings a bell, but it does. Rebranding from the German title was done to perhaps sooth foreseen sensitivities; but the direct translation does capture an ethic which is problematic in terms of keeping a unified front for improvement of the lives and lot of the regular people of our nation; unionized or not.
The In These Times item continues, via background before telling any sordid detail.
Dubbed the Build Back Better Act, the reconciliation bill as currently designed would amount to what Sen. Bernie Sanders calls (I‑Vt.) “the most consequential piece of legislation for working people, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor since FDR and the New Deal of the 1930s.” It includes historic investments in healthcare, education and climate change policy, paid for by raising taxes on the wealthy.
Importantly for the labor movement, the bill also reportedly includes key provisions of the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act—legislation that would reform labor law and remove many of the legal obstacles to forming a union. Among those provisions included in the Build Back Better Act are substantial fines against employers who commit unfair labor practices and a ban on the permanent replacement of striking workers.
For months, Democratic leaders have said they would pursue a “two-track” strategy of linking the Build Back Better Act with a smaller, bipartisan infrastructure bill championed especially by conservative Democrats like Sens. Joe Manchin (W.V.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Az.), which the Senate passed in August. [...]
But giving in to pressure from nine conservative House Democrats with ties to the dark money group No Labels, last week Pelosi reversed course and planned to call a vote on the infrastructure bill before any deal was reached on the Build Back Better Act. The intent, made clear in a No Labels memo, was to decouple the two pieces of legislation [...]
The 96-member Congressional Progressive Caucus pushed back, [...] “If we don’t pass our agenda together — that’s infrastructure AND paid leave, child care, climate action, and more — then we’re leaving millions of working people behind,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D‑Wash.), chair of the progressive caucus, tweeted last Monday.
Given the Progressives' solidarity, Pelosi postponed a decoupling vote, which would have been a defeat of the Senate's bill. Now, the nub of the story:
At this crucial moment, the AFL-CIO’s chief lobbyist, William Samuel, sent a letter to members of the House. Rather than tell them to hold the line, Samuel wrote: “On behalf of the AFL-CIO, I urge you to vote for the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), when it comes to the House floor this week.” The message directly undermined the two-track strategy of keeping the bills linked together.
Samuel added that the reconciliation package also needed to pass, but made clear that the infrastructure bill should pass first. “We urge you to vote in favor of the IIJA and then quickly complete negotiations and pass the budget reconciliation bill,” he wrote (italics added).
At the same time, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten also sent a letter to House members, similarly urging them to pass the infrastructure bill as “a critical first step,” adding that it “must be followed by passage of the Build Back Better Act” (italics added).
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), leader of the small group of conservative House Democrats trying to decouple the bills, immediately seized on Weingarten’s letter, tweeting a screenshot of it and writing: “Thanks to @AFTunion! Let’s get bipartisan infrastructure bill done tonight!”
In the end, House progressives stood firm Thursday night and Pelosi was forced to postpone the infrastructure vote — thus keeping negotiations on the reconciliation bill going for the time being, much to the aggravation of conservative Democrats.
But the AFL-CIO and AFT letters, both issued at a pivotal moment in this ongoing legislative fight, raise questions about some labor leaders’ commitment to passing the Build Back Better Agenda. It is especially surprising given that the AFL-CIO has made passing the PRO Act its top legislative priority, mobilizing thousands of union members to advocate for the labor law reform all year long.
While labor leaders continue to express support for Biden’s entire domestic agenda, some appear reluctant to discuss their position on the two-track legislative strategy.
The AFL-CIO did not respond to emailed questions asking if it is confident that elements of the PRO Act would remain in the reconciliation package if the infrastructure bill were passed first. Three AFL-CIO affiliates that have been prominent in their advocacy for the PRO Act — the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, Communications Workers of America, and Association of Flight Attendants — also did not respond to requests to clarify their own legislative strategy (see update at the bottom of this article).
In response to Weingarten’s letter, which she said was sent “on behalf of the 1.7 million members of the American Federation of Teachers,” a group of rank-and-file AFT members around the country are circulating a public letter urging her “to retract her statement and demand that Congress pass both bills together at the same time.”
Passing the infrastructure bill first “would give away all progressives’ leverage to pass the $3.5 trillion BBB Act,” the letter reads. “As educators, we need our union to do everything possible to fight for this vision — not to undermine it.”
Susan Kang, a rank-and-file member of the AFT-affiliated Professional Staff Congress at the City University of New York and mother of two public school students, told In These Times she is “disappointed” that Weingarten urged the immediate passage of the bipartisan infrastructure bill, particularly because the bill leaves out much of the Green New Deal.
“I signed on to the letter [aimed at Weingarten] because I support the Green New Deal through the Build Back Better Act,” Kang explained. “I support the Green New Deal for public schools, and as my kids crowd into outdated, unventilated classrooms in this second full school year of Covid, it is painfully obvious that we need massive federal money to fix our schools and make them more environmentally and socially more sustainable.”
In a statement to In These Times, Weingarten said, “We want and need both pieces of the Biden agenda: Build Back Better and traditional infrastructure. AFT members have called, written, shouted and devoted time, money and effort to overcome GOP obstinacy and get it passed… Enacting the Biden agenda in its entirety is the best way to transform America.”
A spokesperson for UNITE HERE, another AFL-CIO affiliate, told In These Times, “We want it all to go through, and call on Congress to work together to get it done.” The hospitality workers’ union led extensive get-out-the-vote efforts last year credited with helping Democrats retake control of both the White House and Senate.
“There is too much at stake for workers and families to leave anything off the table,” UNITE HERE President D. Taylor said in a statement. “We support any measure to achieve overdue reforms on these critical issues, including eliminating the filibuster.”
In urging the House of Representatives to ram through the infrastructure bill last Thursday rather than hold the line, AFL-CIO and AFT leaders were either genuinely confident that much of the Build Back Better Act — including key parts of labor law reform — would survive if the two bills were decoupled, or they were tacitly willing to sacrifice some or all of the reconciliation package to ensure passage of the infrastructure bill by an arbitrarily set deadline.
Whichever it is, they won’t say.
Update: Since this article was published on October 4, the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE) — which is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO — has put out a statement supporting progressives in Congress “who are refusing to buckle under to demands from corporate Democrats to water down the budget reconciliation bill.” UE’s national officers said, “As anyone who has gone through negotiations knows, giving up your leverage before securing your goals is a losing strategy. We fully support those members of Congress who are using the only leverage they have — refusing to vote on the smaller infrastructure bill until a strong reconciliation bill is passed.”
Further, a spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) told In These Times, “We have advocated for BOTH to pass together. Not one without the other.” The spokesperson pointed to a tweet last Friday from AFA president Sara Nelson, sometimes rumored to be a future contender for the AFL-CIO presidency, that “One [bill] without the other is a decision to leave women behind.”
The Crabgrass guess is that the two union bosses writing their "decouple" letters (apparently in absence of any membership vote authorizing the membership's union to advocate such a position) had cause to expect the PRO Act part of reconciliation policy would survive even if all the regular people friendly policy were to be scuttled. Why and how such a belief might have been formed would be a great story if only Toto would pull the curtain aside on that so we could see the Wizard at work, hither and yon, bargaining and promising. Unfortunately, we can only guess why the two union bosses wrote as they did, hanging others out to dry.
Do you think Gottheimer and Weingarten had conversations? Finding common ground? Before the Weingarten letter was composed? One seeking out the other? Weingarten is not without controversy, prior to her present interventionist letter writing.
Moral of the story? If you sell out your neighbor your neighbor might take it personally, and be unhappy. Goes around. Comes around. Short-term tactics should not squeeze out long-term wisdom and decency. Labor leaders can be replaced. With the graveyards full of indispensable people, good thinking can supersede bad thinking.
Union truth is the membership cannot be fired but the bosses can be.
__________UPDATE_________
Two NYT items, years apart, discuss Randi Weingarten, and may be troublesome to some, cheerful to others. In concert with Schumer, more recently, here. Anti-progressive hostility, during Clinton/Sanders contested times, here. If it seems she has an agenda apart from knowing what the bulk of the nation's people want and deserve and acting accordingly, Weingarten's hostility toward progressive challenge to her idealized status quo Democratic Party relationships may be the bedrock underlying such an indifference to popular will. Neither Schumer nor the Clintons are great friends of the popular will. In the 2016 NYT item it is noted:
And now, as Mrs. Clinton contends with daily disclosures from the hacked messages of top campaign aides — missives that have reinforced the central progressive criticisms of her bid, including her coziness with Wall Street — some of Mr. Sanders’s admirers have been compelled to consider again what might have been.
With a couple of breaks and more fortunate timing, many of them believe, the rumpled socialist really, truly could have been president.
“I think they should have put the damn emails out before the primaries were over,” said RoseAnn DeMoro, the executive director of National Nurses United, a union that campaigned heavily for Mr. Sanders. “Bernie could have won the election, and that’s the most irritating and painful thing. It would have made a world of difference.
“Now we are going to have a dynamic status quo,” Ms. DeMoro predicted. “It’s going to look like change. But it’s not change.”
Not all Sanders supporters believe an earlier release would have altered the election. [...] But the content of the messages, while a measure short of astonishing so far, almost certainly could have upended a primary campaign premised largely on Mrs. Clinton’s place in an increasingly progressive and populist Democratic Party.
In excerpts from paid speeches to financial institutions and corporate audiences, Mrs. Clinton embraced unfettered international trade and offered praise for a budget-balancing plan that would have required cuts to Social Security. She spoke of the need for “a public and a private position” on politically sensitive issues. And she allowed that her family’s growing wealth had left her “kind of far removed” from the experience of the middle class.
“I feel like I’m channeling Captain Renault from ‘Casablanca,’” said Jonathan Tasini, a former union leader who challenged Mrs. Clinton in her Senate primary in New York in 2006. “I’m shocked — shocked! — that Hillary Clinton has a close relationship with Wall Street.”
[...] For at least a handful, the emails have especially rankled given the seeming free fall of Mr. Trump, which has bolstered their view that Mr. Sanders’s proudly left-wing politics would not have precluded victory in the general election.
On the heels of leaked emails over the summer from the Democratic National Committee, which suggested favoritism toward Mrs. Clinton among party leaders, and persistent complaints that Mr. Sanders’s bid was not taken seriously enough from the start, Sanders allies say the latest revelations have heightened tensions that are likely to persist if Mrs. Clinton is elected.
“There is still this real disconnect between her and working people. That’s very difficult to see,” Winnie Wong, a founder of People for Bernie, a group of Sanders supporters, said of Mrs. Clinton. “The people really have to get together and make sure some of these agenda items on the platform become a reality.”
Ms. DeMoro, of the nurses’ union, expressed outrage over an email sent to Mr. Podesta by Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who vowed to combat the nurses’ “high and mighty sanctimonious conduct.” (Mr. Podesta replied, “Thanks.”)
“We are going to have to fight and organize like we would against a Republican, if the emails ring true,” Ms. DeMoro said.
An anti-progressive leopard, today, is not changing spots. Surprised?
Willing now to throw the Build Back Better agenda under the bus, willing to throw Bernie and Unionized nurses there years ago - it hangs together.
As to cahoots with Schumer to funnel taxpayer money to private schools, as NYT reports it, the Weingarten perspective was anti-DeVos during Trump years but in league with Schumer's being pressured by a part of his constituency.
In effect, Weingarten with her anti-progressive history is a Clinton-Schumer inner party Democrat who lives in East Hampton, New York. The Hamptons are not a constituency bloc of the kind that progressive aim to help, but rather a bloc progressives tend to want to tax more fairly, so that the rest of us can have better lives.
The most recent will to see severed the two bills that together make the agenda Biden says he desires does fit Weingarten's current Hamptons-centric life and persona, apart from expecting a labor boss to be sympathetic to the overworked and underpaid. And - Bernie in 2016 would have won against Trump. He had better people than the Podesta brothers behind him - John Podesta with whom Weingarten privaely corresponed over her will to trod down the nurses who were Bernie supporting progressives.
__________UPDATE________
For the history of Weingarten undermining Bernie and unionized nurses in cahoots with Podesta and the Clintons; the email discussion; this websearch. Please take notice that news was not news enough for any mainstream propaganda outlet to touch. None. Zippo. At least per the search return listings.
For how widespread the coverage of the AFL-CIO and AFT undermining of progressives was, this websearch. Again, please note the absence of mainstream propagandists, right wing or more right wing, touching the the story. None. Zippo.
On the latter (recent) search return list you see reddit threads, facebook posts, but no CNN. No MSNBC. No Breitbart, but that's no surprise.
WTF are those clowns doing, since they are not doing NEWS!
Reliance on what TV will tell you is reliance upon an untrustworthy set of biased but well paid talking heads scripted by big money. That Gottheimer was able to drive a wedge between two major long-term Dem blocs IS NEWS AND UNDENIABLY SO. That Pelosi blinked because of consolidated consistent progressive numbers, that's NEWS, Yes, the vote postponement got MSM marginal attention. But not the question of organized labor top dogs throwing the rest of us under the bus.
Why do you suppose that widespread coverage of the organized labor leadership's betrayal of progressive allies got zippo MSM movement off the dime? Bias? Editorial belief of no need-to-know? Those folks? Doing that? Oh, my. What next?
For all MSM's published, Weingarten and Samuel and their concurrent letters saying the same thing to all House members have no 'splaining to do to US. Yes, other less selfish labor insiders noted those letters and put up an opposition quickly and helpfully. Yes, they knew.
But why is it thought of only as inside-labor stuff among MSM mavens, and not public stuff to inform a complete population, including the part that votes?
Treat the voting population like mushrooms, and you've an unlimited future in MSM.
Like we're too dangerous to be well informed? What? WHY?
__________FURTHER UPDATE__________
A retrospective look at big union bosses and the 2016 election, here and here, (neither a mainstream media outlet), will help put the present under-the-bus attitude toward progressive pro-people intent. Either indifferent, or hostile; and either way it is cutting off the nose to spite the face.
Who are these people, and what is their history of advancement within union circles? How widespread is the gulf between progressive mood, and organized labor's "As long as our ox doesn't get gored" "thinking?"
Short-sighted and selfish? You decide.
What's to be done about it? You decide.
Will the Democratic Party ever truly be a party of the people? You decide.
Schumer and the DSCC seem to not want that to be - while taking a publicly cautious posture for 2022 before putting a heavy thumb on the primary scales. Wait and see on that. Promises to hold back are mere words; so stay skeptical. And that note of caution is only for contests without a Dem incumbent. There the institutional thumb is on scales early and often. Our Colleagues, uber Alles.