Payne: Union AstroTurf ( the Michigan View 2.23.11)

Posted by hpayne on February 23, 2011

As the Tea Party movement gained steam in 2009, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously derided the movement as “AstroTurf” – an artificial grassroots movement created by the Republican establishment “to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich.” The charge was pure fantasy as the Tea Party proved to be a historic grassroots movement that energized voters – many of them who had never been part of organized politics before – and swept in huge numbers of Republicans candidates.

Now, as Democrats try to get off the floor from their November Tea Party pounding, they are trumpeting union demonstrations from Wisconsin to Michigan as evidence of a grassroots backlash of their own.

That too is Democratic fantasy. This really is an AstroTurf movement.

In Wisconsin, Big Labor – backed by Barrack Obama’s campaign organization, Organizing for America – has mustered busloads of teachers and other union members to fight union reforms that are a direct threat to organized labor’s power. In short, it is anything but a grassroots movement as even the Democratic New York Times figured out.

“The demonstrations have been more organized than organic, with some of the Democratic Party’s top strategists in Madison and Washington helping to assemble giant crowds,” reported the Times over the weekend. “Labor unions, along with the Democratic National Committee and the White House, see this moment as an opportunity to begin rallying troops for the next election.”

Ouch. Called out as AstroTurf by the house organ.

It was no different in Lansing Tuesday, where the United Steel Workers and the AFL-CIO bused in some 500 members for a demonstration against Governor Rick Snyder’s sensible plan to bring union benefits in line with the private sector.

By contrast, a handful of tea partiers turned out to cheer for Snyder’s reforms – average citizens taking time off from their regular routines on a cold Tuesday afternoon.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s union reforms – and to a lesser extent, Snyder’s – are a direct threat to organized labor as they would allow true democracy to flourish. By giving choice to government workers as to whether to join a union, Big Labor’s bosses (there’s your political establishment, Ms. Pelosi) rightly fear that they would lose dues without coerced unionization. And less dues means less money to lobby legislatures and fund candidates to do their bidding.

Organized labor represents a small minority of Americans even as it demands unequal benefits from the majority. No wonder Pelosi fears the grassroots.

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