By Norman Hill, President, A. Philip Randolph Institute

Polls show that House Speaker Newt Gingrich's job rating, and the rating of the right-wing Congress in general, are near rock bottom. Right-wing politicians seem less outspoken and arrogant than they were after taking over Congress in 1994. Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton's job rating has been rising to record levels.

Does this mean that the reactionary threat to working families and African Americans is ebbing away? Can the Black-Labor Alliance finally relax its struggle to protect the rights of workers and minorities?

Not by a long shot. The systematic attacks continue, both from right-wing politicians at the federal, state, and local levels, and from their masters in corporate America. Let's look at a few examples.

One of the greatest threats are the efforts around the country to cut the political clout of organized labor. Proposed state bills and ballot initiatives would require a trade union to get permission from its members to spend their dues money on political action. Supporters of such measures say that they simply want to protect members' rights. If that's true, why don't they also demand that corporations consult their stockholders or that trade and professional associations consult their members before spending money in the political arena?

The answer is that these proposed measures have nothing to do with protecting individual workers and everything to do with hobbling the unions that represent them. Political lobbying and election-related activities by the AFL-CIO have resulted in significant political successes in recent years, including the minimum wage hike and the reduction of the right-wing's House majority in 1996, plus the defeat of fast-track trade legislation last year. Now the corporations and right-wing politicians are striking back to prevent similar victories by organized labor in the future.

But the trade union movement is fighting back, battling against an initiative on California's June 2 primary ballot to hobble organized labor under the guise of defending workers. [Editor's Note: Labor won this battle in California; Prop. 226 was defeated with a resounding 71 to 29 percent vote.] And it is fighting similar bills and ballot initiatives being considered in nearly 25 other states.

In another attempt to weaken the influence of workers and their unions, efforts are being made in 21 states to prevent public workers from gaining collective bargaining rights. Public employees are also endangered by a coalition of 70 trade associations and businesses lobbying for laws to turn public services over to private ownership. Under private owners, who put cost-cutting above service to the public, employees' union status, workplace rights, and even their jobs may be threatened.

Assaults on working families are occurring on many other fronts as well. Corporate America and its right-wing political allies want to partially privatize Social Security. A portion of an individual's retirement account would be invested in the stock market. As a result, the individual would receive a smaller guaranteed monthly check. Hopefully, he or she would also make money on the stock market, but that's a gamble, not a certainty. Wealthy people may be able to afford this gamble, but the average worker cannot. Corporate America wants Social Security privatization so that more funds will flow into the stock exchange, and they are willing to gamble workers' retirement income to accomplish that.

The corporations are also pushing for Medicare medical savings accounts (MSAs), modeled after IRAs. These would take wealthier and healthier seniors out of the Medicare system, leaving Medicare with more expensive beneficiaries to cover. Other proposed measures would push Medicare beneficiaries into managed care and raise Medicare premiums. Meanwhile, recipients of medical services are also threatened by a coalition of CEOs of leading health care organizations. They are lobbying for legislation to end government regulation of the health care market -- except when it benefits them, of course.

In Congress, there is still a push for educational vouchers. These would help some better-off families to send their children to private schools while leaving the great majority of workers' children in weakened public school systems with less funding than before.

Also, opponents of affirmative action are pressing Congress to adopt the so-called Civil Rights Act of 1997. Despite its name, the bill would erode civil rights by outlawing programs that level the playing field for minorities and women. Attempts to end affirmative action through legislation or ballot initiatives are being made in 10 states, including Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Washington.

On these issues the African American community has more at stake than just about any community in the United States. The great majority of blacks are workers, and black workers have historically been America's most exploited members of the workforce. While blacks make up only 12 percent of the population, 21 percent of the working poor with full-time employment are African Americans. Therefore, black workers need the advantages of trade union membership even more than other workers. And, in fact, African American workers have benefited dramatically from trade union activity. In 1997 the average nonunion black worker earned $371 a week. Unionized black workers earned $533 a week, or 44 percent more. That's bigger than the union pay advantage for all workers, which is 34 percent. Therefore, the current drive to weaken trade unions is especially dangerous for African American workers.

Since blacks remain poorer than the American population in general (40 percent of African Americans live below the poverty line, compared to 16 percent of whites), they are particularly vulnerable to all of the attacks on working families that I have discussed. Most black workers need a stable, unprivatized Social Security system as a source of dependable retirement income. They cannot afford to, nor should they be forced to, gamble part of it on the stock market. If they have savings, they can decide on their own whether to do that.

Furthermore, the majority of African Americans do not have the means to send their children to good private schools, with or without educational vouchers. If vouchers become national policy, most black children will continue to go to public schools, except that those schools will have less funding instead of the additional monies that they badly need. Finally, blacks, of course, have a vital stake in preserving affirmative action, which merely tries to give minorities and women a fair chance in a society that has historically discriminated against them.

On all of these issues, organized labor is the strongest American institution fighting for working people, the poor, and minorities. It stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the African American community. The forementioned common interest agenda is the basis for the effective strengthening of a functional Black-Labor Alliance.

For nearly 35 years, the A. Philip Randolph Institute has been the linchpin of the Black-Labor Alliance, fighting for the well-being of black workers and their families. Over that time we have, among many other things, helped trade unions conduct organizing campaigns in African American communities, and run voter registration campaigns, voter education projects, and get-out-the-vote drives in those communities. In this election year, we will be working hard in many Congressional districts and gubernatorial races to maximize the impact of the black vote. If we succeed, then we will be able to replace regressive attacks on working families, and especially black families, with an agenda that promotes economic justice and racial equality.

Reprinted from the Black-Labor Agenda May 1998.