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Public employees, Teamsters, and all of California’s
working people won a tremendous victory on November 8, sending
all four of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s anti-worker propositions
down to a crushing defeat.
This wasn’t an easy victory. When Governor
Schwarzenegger and his corporate allies first launched their
attack on public workers and their unions, early polls showed
support for the antiworker propositions. Proposition 75, the
initiative designed to restrict union involvement in the political
arena and the heart of Schwarzenegger’s attack on working
families, at one time enjoyed a 55–23 percent edge with
voters. However, by election day, Schwarzenegger’s cornerstone
lost 53 percent to 47 percent.
Achieving that turn-around took thousands of
union members across the state putting in days and nights
of phone banking, precinct walking, rally organizing, mailings
and meetings.
Voters get the message
Fortunately, voters were not fooled by the Special Election.
They rejected Arnold Schwarzenegger’s power grab,
and they rejected his bullying antics and his politics of
blame.
California union members passed out more than 2 million
workplace leaflets and made more than 2 million phone calls
to mobilize union family voters against the corporate-backed
attacks. The Los Angeles Times reported that the campaign
against working families was “financed chiefly by
business interests, including real estate developers, technology
executives, auto dealers, agribusiness and Wal-Mart heirs.”
Ultimately, California’s working people didn’t
buy the notion that silencing unions and giving the governor
new sweeping powers would really solve the problems facing
California.
No rest yet
As sweet as this victory is for union members, it is essentially
a holding action. If you listened to the governor on Election
Night, you know that he offered no apology for the ordeal
he put our state through. He had no apology for the trash
talking he did about firefighters, teachers and nurses.
And he has done nothing to suggest he is backing away from
his plan to gut the retirement system or continue bleeding
money from local governments.
“This fight is far from over. While more members
of our Local registered to vote and participated in DRIVE
than ever before, that’s just a start,” says
Secretary-Treasurer Rome Aloise. “The governor’s
long-term agenda is to break union power. Next, he wants
to take away public employees’ defined benefit pension
plans and then make California a right-to-work state.”
Teamsters and a strong majority of California voters sent
the Terminator a message loud and clear: “Your special
election was a waste of time, money and effort. Terminate
your right-wing agenda and get back to the business of governing
the state instead of posing for photo ops on the campaign
trail.”
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