The AFL-CIO was blunt in the call that went out to Rep. Scott Peters, a Democrat who represents San Diego: Vote yes on fast-track authority and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, people familiar with the conversation recall, and they’d spend a million dollars to knock him out in next year’s primary. If he managed to win, they’d drop another million against him in the general election.

The real fight over the trade agenda has always been in the House, and that’s where organized labor has been focusing for months. The aggressive effort has left even members who’ll be voting labor’s way bruised, and others who’ll be supporting President Barack Obama anxious enough that many won’t discuss their experiences publicly, instead dispatching staffers to speak on their behalf.


“They were very heavy-handed. And it was not appreciated. And it will not be forgotten,” said one Democratic staffer for a member who will be voting no on trade, as the unions want.

This staffer and other Democratic members and staffers who spoke under the condition of anonymity related a range of threats from local and national labor groups to pressure Democrats into opposing Obama.

Permanently cut off campaign donations. Pour money into opponents’ coffers instead. Run television ads. Launch protests of the type that have already stepped up this week, which include showing up in Sacramento, California, with giant prop Q-tips to urge Rep. Ami Bera, the latest announced supporter of Trade Promotion Authority, to “clean out his ears.” Take a pass at providing the organizing help Democrats rely on unions for in tight races.

And more: primaries from the left. Threats to spend more money on direct mail in just a few districts to knock out uncooperative Democrats than was spent on labor’s entire campaign budget the last few midterm cycles. A promise that memories will be long, that even if members survive the next few elections, they’ll wait for the next round of redistricting, particularly in California, and make sure the members they call traitors pay the price then.

Or, at a minimum, that they’ll choose one member to make an example of, but they won’t say which, yet. Could be Peters, who’s in an already marginal Democratic district, or his fellow San Diego Rep. Sue Davis. Could be Bera, or Fresno Rep. Jim Costa, or any of the other “yes” or potential “yes” votes in California, Oregon and Washington state, where efforts have been the most intense.

That included two West Coast Democrats who were warned they’d be facing $2 million and $1 million in ads, respectively, according to a source familiar with the threats. One was told that the money would be dumped in the month before Election Day 2016 — with the labor group involved promising that the content would not be trade-related, but personal attacks found effective in 2014 poll testing.

AFL-CIO spokesperson Amaya Smith said a spending threat like the one made against Peters doesn’t reflect the labor organization’s internal process for funding candidates.

“We haven’t made any spending decisions on 2016 yet, and that comes after a candidate is endorsed locally,” Smith said.

Nonetheless, many unions believe the trade debate is an existential moment for organized labor, with numbers shrinking, influence waning and local and national organizers making stopping TPA and TPP their mortal cause. Their tactics aren’t radically different from standard union organizing, and unions certainly aren’t the only groups to play hardball in seeking to get their way in Washington. What Democrats aren’t used to is having labor’s exertions turned on them.

As for what will be unleashed next fall, Smith said, it’s “premature to be talking about this. Members’ votes on TPA will be a huge issue, though, and, more importantly, it will be relevant to voters.”

One Democratic member said labor’s intensity on the issue is telling: “I haven’t seen this look in their eyes in a long time.”

Rep. Cedric Richmond, a member of both the moderate New Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus who has the New Orleans port in his district, had been listening to the White House make its case. Like Peters, he still hasn’t made a public decision, and his office says his mind’s truly not made up. But over the past few weeks, colleagues say, he’s essentially shut down.

“There’s just no way I can do this,” others on the Hill say they’ve heard Richmond say. “The pressure’s just too much.”

Richmond’s office, like Peters’, declined comment about his encounters.

Not everyone has been landed on so directly.

“They’re veiled threats,” said Rep. Brad Ashford (D-Neb.), who’s voting yes on TPA and said he attributes most of the pushback to the national offices of the unions rather than the locals in his district. “They mainly come from third parties — ‘You won’t get any money from labor.’ I don’t give it a whole lot of credence.”

“The union case is unmistakable,” said Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.), who said he remains leaning no as he has been for months, but also remains persuadable.

Butterfield said he hasn’t encountered much pressure himself, but he’s heard enough from around town. A freeze on donations that the AFL-CIO imposed until after the TPA vote has particularly angered CBC members who often struggle with fundraising. Butterfield, the CBC chairman, said he’s heard regrets from within the labor community about that.

“That’s not the best approach to dealing with this issue — and now many of them have recognized that, and some have said to me that that was probably not in good taste to make that kind of threat,” Butterfield said.

Pro-trade Democrats say it’s all just bluster. With the exception of the AFL-CIO, Teamsters, Communications Workers of America and the Machinists, most unions have kept their opposition to the trade agenda to muted efforts like signing onto letters.

Unions may try to show their political muscle here, say Democrats who are supporting the president, but instead end up showing just how much it’s atrophied, like in labor’s failed effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. Members complain that trade has become a litmus test for being pro- or anti-labor when they’ve been with labor on every issue from minimum wage to worker protections to immigration and infrastructure.

“I don’t understand why the labor movement is falling on its sword on this issue, and if we lose this issue, somehow the labor movement is no longer relevant,” said Ashford, arguing that he’d like to see the unions involved pour their energy into organizing new workers and pushing for higher wages. “I think unions have a significant opportunity.”

Democrats backing TPA wonder: Will unions really choose to target Democrats who are otherwise their allies instead of fighting to flip Republican districts or organizing against people like Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is threatening to turn Illinois into a right-to-work state? And for every $2 million threat labor makes, won’t Obama, now that he’s turned trade into the great political cause of his term, be able to raise $4 million in response?

And really, is anyone actually going to mount a primary challenge from the left?

“Is it overblown? Yeah. But it’s working,” said one senior House Democratic staffer. “This is just one more thing you have out there to soak up the paranoia.”

As he was beginning the trade push, Obama had a number of labor leaders, including AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, over to the White House. He never asked them to support what he was proposing, say people familiar with the conversations, but he did extract promises from those who disagreed with him to keep their backlash under control.

Instead, despite an outreach effort that’s kept Labor Secretary Tom Perez and others often out on the road, the administration has fallen short in its hopes of neutralizing the opposition. Though administration officials like to relate stories of how they’ve brought around an individual rank-and-file member here and there, they’ve failed to change the overall tide.

“Once people have an opportunity really to look at this, I think you’re going to find some of the opposition dissipate,” said Mitch Stewart, a former Obama campaign aide who through his firm 270 Strategies is now advising the Progressive Coalition for American Jobs, a group of political leaders looking to build support for pro-trade Democrats.

This experience has solidified for Obama a distinction he makes between innovative labor leaders — those who have found a way to accept that he’s pushing for more trade — and those who are not. SEIU president Mary Kay Henry, people familiar with the thinking in the White House say, is in the former category. Trumka and Teamsters president James Hoffa are in the latter.

As for the threats like the one delivered to Peters, Butterfield tried to downplay them — after all, he said, labor and Democrats who vote yes are going to have to find a way to get past this once the vote’s done.

“Somebody just had one drink too many that night,” Butterfield said. “I don’t believe a responsible labor leader would make that kind of comment.”