Labor took a big swing in the election last week and missed.
Labor unions teamed up with trial attorneys and other supporters to create the West Virginia Family Values PAC this election cycle to try to defeat Republicans—particularly in the state Senate—who supported right-to-work and the repeal of prevailing wage.
According to the most recent financial report, the PAC raised $2.7 million. But there wasn’t a very good return on the investment.
The PAC’s biggest success was the victory by Democrat and labor supporter Glenn Jeffries over incumbent Republican Senator Chris Walters in the 8th Senatorial District (Kanawha, Putnam), but overall the Republicans gained seats, extending their majority from 18-16 to 22-12.
West Virginia Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation executive director Steve White did not sugarcoat the results. “I’m pretty disappointed,” White told me on Talkline Monday. “But so goes the election and on to the next one.”
White says labor candidates (almost all Democrats) faced the double whammy of Donald Trump’s popularity—he received 68 percent of the vote—and Hillary Clinton’s unpopularity—she won only 27 percent. They were “pushing and pulling against you at the same time.”
Labor was highly motivated this election by the right-to-work and prevailing wage issues, with the hope those changes could be rolled back with a significant shift in the make-up of the Legislature. But that won’t happen now.
“The numbers are totally against us to return those bills,” White said. “Let’s be realistic.” However, White does see an opportunity for the building trades to form an alliance with Republicans “to focus on the issue we all want to focus on—jobs.”
(White does hold out hope that the research will show the repeal of prevailing wage is not resulting in the savings predicted by supporters.)
Meanwhile, White and other labor leaders have to recalibrate and prepare for the next election. He is among those concerned about the decline of the state’s Democratic Party and the drag created by the national Democratic Party.
“The West Virginia Democratic Party cannot survive being tethered to the DC Democratic message,” White said. “It must adopt a message more in tune with West Virginia voters.”
Labor has been a historically significant political force in West Virginia, but its influence has waned over the years. The passage of right-to-work, the repeal of prevailing wage and now the failure of much of labor’s efforts in last week’s election represent three substantive and symbolic setbacks in 2016.