The votes in last month’s primary hadn’t even been counted when union activist Matt Brandon began working on the next big prize: the February 2007 aldermanic elections. As he sees it, one of the biggest problems in Chicago politics is a City Council that’s too compliant with the mayor and out of touch with the needs of unionized public employees. So he plans to rally his union behind a slate of labor-friendly, independent-minded challengers in almost every ward, sending out campaign workers to get them elected. “At some point you have to take a stand,” says Brandon, secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union Local 73. “The rubber-stamp mentality of the council has got to change.”
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But they don’t flex their muscle, in part because their leadership routinely backs Mayor Daley and the council no matter how much they limit raises, privatize the workforce, or raid pension funds. As several union officials have explained it to me, they pull their punches on the assumption that if they fight they’ll lose and then wind up with even less than they already have.
Brandon understands that there might not be a lot of public sympathy for city employees, what with all the reports of featherbedding, workers sleeping in their cars during shifts, or union bosses using their clout to get their inexperienced sons high-paying city jobs. “I don’t condone any of that,” he says. “It makes me sick to my stomach like everyone else. But most workers don’t have that kind of clout. Most of them are watching jobs get privatized or wages cut or health benefits cut while they get blamed for everything that’s wrong.”
Brandon’s unmoved. “You can’t vote to privatize the workforce and then say you’re prounion ’cause you vote for a big-box ordinance that will make the Wal-Marts and Targets pay employees $10 an hour,” he says. “It’s good press–rah-rah. But it’s sugarcoating, a Band-Aid on the wound. These aren’t jobs that you can support a family on. The real problem is that the middle class is dying in this city–labor’s being run out of town. We have to elect aldermen who are willing to stand up for labor.”
“The election’s really right around the corner–less than a year away–it’s time to get started,” he says. “I’m tired of the complacency. Let’s shake things up.”
