As the 2022 midterms near, there is increasing optimism about our ability to stem the white supremacist fascist tide and hold the House of Representatives and increase Democratic margins in the Senate. The vote on abortion in Kansas should give us all heart and cause us to recommit to doing the work of knocking on doors and getting out our vote. Recently I interviewed David Sickler retired Southern California Director of the State Building Trades Council  and long time AFL-CIO Western Regional Director. Dave is a working class organizer and a hero and mentor to many.

I wanted to learn from the lessons of defeating Proposition 226, the so-called “Paycheck Protection Act” placed on the California Ballot in 1998. I sat down with Dave Sickler.

Q: What was Prop 226? What would it have done to labor and who was behind it? 

Sickler: On June 2nd, 1998 Prop. 226 was promoted as the “Paycheck Protection” initiative by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) an extreme right wing national organization created and backed by the US Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, Koch Industries, Grover Norquist, California Governor, Pete Wilson and other wealthy donors. 226 in California was supposed to be the model for the nation. Grover Norquist said if it passed in California it will pass in every other state in the nation and will reduce labors strength by 80%. Prop. 226 was promoted as a benefit to union members because it required unions to get the approval of union members to spend union money on political campaigns. Unions would have to contact every single union member every year and have them sign a form agreeing to have union money for every campaign and issue facing union members. The goal was to cripple labor’s ability to protect itself by raising money to fight back. The Economic Policy Institute said because of the measure’s excessive and onerous bureaucratic roadblocks it would seriously hamper Union leadership’s ability to protect its members.

 Q: What were the polls saying? What was some of Labor saying? 

Sickler: Polls showed 226 to be very popular with rank and file union members by 76%. Many labor leaders threw up their hands and said they wouldn’t even waste money fighting it. We in the Building Trades had been fighting Governor Pete Wilson over the prevailing wage issue and his attack on the 8 hr day for a long time, and we were totally against giving him a free pass on #226. We knew we could beat him and his right wing cronies. 

Q: What did you do to turn things around? 

Sickler: What I did was to meet with Miguel Contreras Executive Secretary of the LA County Federation of Labor who told me the County Fed. would not fight 226 because most of the affiliates were not going fight it, and many attorneys said it would pass no matter what we did, and we would just piss off the membership. I told Miguel that I knew we could beat 226 and I asked him to support me, and I would at least build him an army. I told him I needed office space and supplies, and I told him I wanted to speak at every delegates’ meeting because I wanted to be invited to every union meeting in Los Angeles County. I knew if I could go one on one with every union member I could convince them that 226 was a direct assault on them.

Q: How did those meetings go?

Sickler: I ended up attending a total of 111 meetings. I also met with many community organizations. What I said to union members was that 226 sounds very attractive and reasonable when you first hear about it or even read it, but the closer you look into it you discover the people behind it don’t care about your paycheck. As a matter of fact they all have a track record of attacking your paycheck. Let’s just look first at Governor Pete Wilson. He had a history of trying to eliminate prevailing wages for construction workers and had just finished trying to eliminate the 8 hr. Day. At every meeting I went to I brought a sign up sheet for volunteers to phone bank and walk precincts. Of course I got permission from the officers to solicit volunteers. The response from the rank and file members was fantastic and once the officers saw the reaction they got excited too and jumped on board. This might sound crazy, but I didn’t encounter a single union member in those meetings who argued with me or said they were supporting 226.  

Q: What was the result? 

Sickler: We won! We overcame the two-to-one polling in favor of the measure winning the state by 53 to 47 percent. In Los Angeles County we won by 63%. The victory over 226 was hailed as a modern political miracle. I disagree! It wasn’t a miracle. It was union members seeing through the bullshit and fighting back and knowing they could win! The lesson here is you can’t win a fight if you don’t fight. 

Q: What are the lessons from 226 going into these critical 2022 congressional midterms. Sickler: The lesson we learned from 226 was that you don’t let fear cripple your will to fight back. In the beginning many labor leaders were paralyzed by fear and believed that there was no way we could win so they didn’t even want to try to fight back. When I met with rank and file members and showed them who their enemies were, and what they trying to do to their union, they got very angry and wanted to fight back. We took that anger and channeled it into a positive, mighty and exciting campaign, and we beat the bastards

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