Budget-cutting Democrats in Washington State sidewith corporate elite against workers and the poor

Labor's so-called friends are proving once again to be a treacherous, two-faced crowd. After helping themselves to hefty union campaign contributions, Democratic Governor Christine Gregoire and the majority Democratic leadership of the House and Senate are proposing drastic public service budget cuts, pay freezes, and layoffs of over 8,000 state workers, citing a serious $9 billion shortfall.  

How did the state get into this fix? It is the consequence of years of Democrats and Republicans giving one tax break after another to big business. This policy has left state reserves far below the level needed to weather the current crisis.

Killing worker protections

Just as it does in Washington D.C., where corporate opposition has effectively blocked adoption of the Employee Free Choice Act, union-busting large employers are pulling all the strings in Olympia, directing the actions of both political parties. Their lobbyists work for Boeing, Microsoft, the Building Industry Association, and Washington Association of Business, to name just a few of the corporate heavy hitters.

This became clear when Governor Gregoire and leading Democrats conspired to kill the Workers Privacy Act, the top priority for Washington labor this session. The act outlaws the use of mandatory, employer-called meetings to discuss politics, religion or union matters.  

Acting as shills for corporate interests, Governor Gregoire, House Speaker Frank Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown tried to justify sabotaging the act by throwing up a smokescreen of bogus ethics charges against the Washington State Labor Council.  Its crime?  Having the audacity to say that Democrats who fail to support this important piece of legislation would not get "another dime from labor."

Only after the State Patrol and the Public Disclosure Commission had cleared the Labor Council of any wrongdoing for its statement did it come out that Governor Gregoire had previously promised Boeing that the Workers Privacy Act would not see the light of day if it impacted the company.

As it turns out, Boeing executives were the real extortionists, threatening once again to take more 787-airplane assembly work out of state if the legislature doesn't give it additional concessions and tax breaks.

A simple, effective budget fix

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer carried an article a while back stating that in 2007 there were more than 130,000 Washington households with over $1 million in annual income.  They currently pay no state income tax.  A 10% tax--on their earnings only--would yield $100,000 or more per millionaire household, for a total of over $13 billion in new revenue.  Budget crisis solved!

But instead of taxing corporations and the rich, the Democrats are imposing all the burden of the cuts onto state employees, working people and the poor, causing untold hardship and injury and even death. It is clear whose interests they represent--and it sure as hell ain't the hard working laboring class whose money and support got them elected.

Workers need a fighting party of their own

In addition to mishandling the budget crisis, Democratic legislative leaders have used their power to block almost every piece of legislation supported by labor and to advance all sorts of anti-union legislation, including privatizing child welfare services.

If there are any Democrats out there with a conscience and a sense of accountability--and I know there are, particularly amongst the ranks of labor--they need to mobilize to challenge the actions of this politically bankrupt leadership.

Rank-and-file Democratic Party legislators, instead of following in lock step, voting overwhelmingly for one bad bill after another, should be walking out of the party in protest, in my opinion. They should keep on walking and break with the party, controlled by political opportunists whose true loyalties are for sale to the highest bidder, and help to form a Labor Party that can withstand the lure of corporate corruption.

In the last 30 years, I have attended dozens of labor conventions as a member of Washington Federation of State Employees. Over and over again unionists have endorsed the idea of calling for a workers' party and have passed resolutions calling on the AFL-CIO to do just that. State Labor Council leaders often met my arguments for independent political action with the retort that "the Democratic Party is Labor's party." There is just one problem with that: the Democrats have divided loyalties and business has the upper hand when it comes to buying candidates and elected officials.

Broken system needs a complete overhaul

Reforms like taxing the rich are necessary to meet the basic survival needs of the working class majority in this country, but they can't fix a broken system. Economic and political democracy is impossible as long as the major industries, and the wealth created by workers' labor, are in private hands. As recent events have proven, corporate crooks will go to any length, including out-and-out robbery, to satisfy the greed of their executives and stockholders. They will continue to use the parties of Wall Street to try to prop up this outlived, capitalist order with its escalating booms and busts wreaking misery around the globe.  

Political corruption under capitalism exists everywhere, but there are countries where the workers and poor have pushed their rulers to nationalize resources and industries for the benefit of the majority--Bolivia, Ecuador, Cuba, and Venezuela to name a few. This can also be done in this country. If banks, the auto companies, the utilities and energy companies, airlines, the medical system and other large industries were nationalized under workers' control, the public, first of all, would know what these industries' real financial situations are and, secondly, could decide how to run them efficiently in order to share the wealth created by workers' labor and provide medical care, housing, education and meaningful employment for all.

Now is the time to end the abuse of power by corporations here in Washington State and elsewhere. We, the people who produce society's wealth, must go to our union halls, strike lines and the streets to fight for our future. Workers in Europe, Latin America and around the world stage militant national general strikes against governmental policies that hurt poor and laboring folk. We can do it here and reorder spending priorities--in the richest country in the world--so that the needs of those who are suffering most are met. One for all and all for one is a powerful rallying cry against injustice and a call that can change history and the tired old "political realities" of this system.

Fred Hyde is a civil rights and civil liberties attorney, a writer for the Freedom Socialist newspaper and a longtime unionist who has been on the frontlines of labor battles in the Northwest for 30 years. He can be reached at fhyde@igc.org or 206-854-9057.