The AFL-CIO’s bold announcement last week that it would withhold contributions to congressional Democrats in advance of votes on fast-track trade promotion authority thrilled labor supporters and annoyed many Democrats.

But it remains to be seen whether the move will impede the Obama administration’s trade agenda — or merely become the latest illustration of unions’ declining clout.


The AFL-CIO has tried such moves in the past — including during the 1993 fight over the North American Free Trade Agreement — only to be defeated and then resume funding Democrats again. Now, with a wide margin of pro-trade Republicans in the House and fervent lobbying from the White House and groups that support President Barack Obama’s trade agenda, labor is more marginalized on trade policy than it’s been in years, despite its growing influence with the president on other workplace issues.

“They certainly have gotten the attention of people who have relied on union support,” said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), who acknowledged that her fellow Democrats often take labor’s loyalty for granted. “Sometimes Democrats feel the default position is always going to be to support Democrats when it comes to organized labor.”

Labor groups vigorously oppose fast track, saying it would speed approval of trade deals that lower labor standards and create additional wage stagnation for the middle class. The AFL-CIO also says that past promises in trade deals to enforce labor standards weren’t worth the paper they were printed on, citing a recent Labor Department report documenting labor rights violations in Honduras and a 2014 Government Accountability Office report faulting the monitoring efforts of the U.S. Trade Representative and Labor Department.

“We know NAFTA has not worked, [the Central American Free Trade Agreement] has not worked, and we have lost jobs and they have brought our wages down,” Tefere Gebre, AFL-CIO executive vice president, said last month at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee’s labor council. “Why the hell would we think a new, larger NAFTA-on-steroids [Trans-Pacific Partnership] would work?”

The aggressiveness of labor’s action delighted top union allies, including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who proclaimed: “This is the first time in history” the organization has withheld campaign donations from Democrats. “I’m thrilled that they’re going to devote time and grass-roots efforts and some dollars for this effort,” the senator said.

But recent history says otherwise, showing that labor’s influence, at least on trade issues, was never all that great. In 1993, the AFL-CIO did precisely the same, choking off campaign donations to Democratic lawmakers for three months in advance of NAFTA, which passed anyway. In 2005, labor vowed to punish the 15 Democrats who sided with an unpopular Republican president by voting for CAFTA. All 15 won reelection, and five are still there.

That’s not to say labor unions and their Democratic allies haven’t successfully delayed free-trade deals in the recent past. In 2007, then-President George W. Bush’s plans for a free-trade agreement with Colombia were successfully scuttled by the Democratic majority in the House after Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California pushed through a resolution that turned off fast-track authority for the pact.

But that was the only time that’s happened out of more than a dozen trade agreements that have been approved using the procedure. Eventually, even the Colombia pact was passed using TPA, along with trade deals with Panama and South Korea in 2011.

The AFL-CIO’s leverage is further diminished by its much-reduced political spending over the years. Labor contributions to Democrats peaked at $90 million in 2002 and haven’t exceeded $70 million since, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington nonprofit.

In 2008, Democrats received $70 million from labor; in 2010, $67 million; in 2012, $61 million; and in 2014, $54 million. (Contributions to Republicans were negligible throughout this period.) Labor spends less because it has ever-fewer members — union density has fallen below 7 percent of the private-sector workforce — and because the spread of right-to-work laws to 25 states, up from 21 in 2001, means more workers in union shops are permitted not to pay dues or their equivalent.

On Tuesday, the AFL-CIO said in a statement that the moratorium would last “until further notice” so that its member unions could focus their resources on defeating fast-track, which requires Congress to give an up-or-down vote to finalized trade agreements, shielding them from amendments.

“This freeze includes events that have already been scheduled, as well as contributions that have been committed and contributions to non-incumbents,”AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in an email to labor leaders obtained by POLITICO.

Some Democrats are plainly spooked. “What this moratorium is really doing is knee-capping the Democratic Party in advance of 2016,” said the aide of a Democratic representative who supports fast-track. The halt in contributions, the aide said, puts Democrats “at a tremendous disadvantage starting off what’s going to be an incredibly competitive 2016.”

But Brown said he hadn’t heard any fellow legislator discuss the AFL-CIO’s moratorium on Democratic contributions. “I’ve only heard it from labor,” the senator said.

There might be good reason for that. In past votes on free-trade deals, such as on CAFTA, big business groups were more than ready to pick up labor’s slack by opening their coffers to free-trade-supporting Democrats.

In the last election, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and major corporations like Boeing, GE and Caterpillar boosted support for pro-business Republicans during their flap with the anti-establishment wing of the party over whether to renew the Export-Import Bank, and Democrats took note.

At the time, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the No. 3 Democrat and the former chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said he’d been chatting up the Chamber president.

“I’ve said this to Tom Donohue and to others — I said, ‘In many ways, mainstream Democrats are closer to you than many Republicans because the tea party has pulled them so far to the right that they are doing what’s harmful to business,’” Schumer said.

It’s unclear whether any trade-supporting Democrats might court big business in the same way over TPA.

But whether they do or not, it might not matter all that much: The House GOP may have enough votes to pass fast track on its own.

When Congress last passed trade promotion authority in 2002, when Bush was president, only 25 Democrats in the House voted for the bill, which squeaked by 215-212. But 13 years later, Republicans control the House by a 57-vote margin.

Granted, an unusual alliance with conservatives gives trade-skeptic Democrats and labor unions a bit of hope: Some conservative Republicans have pledged to oppose the bill out of concerns over giving Obama more authority.

“I think that between those Republicans who don’t want to give the president any more authority to do anything, and Democrats who are very concerned about issue of jobs, I think it’s going to be hard, despite the support by the administration,” said Schakowsky, who opposes giving Obama fast-track authority.

But as some Republicans move toward a “no” vote, some Democrats are likely to move toward “yes.” The 46 members of the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition likely won’t all vote for the trade bill, but they may provide enough “yes” votes to nullify conservative opposition. Twenty-two tea party-aligned Republicans vowed to oppose TPA in a letter to Obama in late 2013; 17 of them are still in the House.

In the Senate, the GOP holds a 54-vote majority, putting it a handful of votes away from the 60 needed to overcome a filibuster. That means Senate Republican leadership will need support from at least six Democrats, and possibly more, if some Republican lawmakers decide to oppose the bill.

So far, labor’s threat isn’t likely to have a direct impact on Democratic campaign spending, coming so soon after the 2014 elections — something International Association of Fire Fighters General President Harold Schaitberger acknowledged.

“Is it early in the cycle? Well, yes, it’s early in the cycle, but this isn’t about where it is in the cycle,” said Schaitberger, who introduced the motion to freeze the donations.

One open question is how long the donation freeze will last. If the AFL-CIO waits until TPA votes in the House and Senate, that could mean no union cash for Democrats until June. If organized labor withholds cash until Congress votes on the Trans-Pacific Partnership itself, the AFL-CIO could end up sitting out most of this year, since TPP isn’t expected to come up for a vote until fall.

The AFL-CIO hasn’t yet taken a formal position on the TPP, but its skepticism about the agreement is well-known.

Matthew Korade contributed to this report.