[Excerpt] Nestled 50 miles south of San Francisco, Silicon Valley has been touted as the model for the future of industrial and corporate America. More important, it could serve as a blueprint for deploying the power of labor\u27s political action — and doing it right

Dean, Amy

English

DigitalCommons@ILR

Labor Research Review 
Volume 1 | Number 22 
Labor and Political Action Article 4 
1994 
Silicon Valley: Labor's High-Tech Stumping 
Amy Dean 
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© 1994 by Labor Research Review 
Silicon Valley: Labor's High-Tech Stumping 
Abstract 
[Excerpt] Nestled 50 miles south of San Francisco, Silicon Valley has been touted as the model for the 
future of industrial and corporate America. More important, it could serve as a blueprint for deploying the 
power of labor's political action — and doing it right. 
Keywords 
Silicon Valley, South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, Committee on Political Education, COPE, Democratic 
Party 
This article is available in Labor Research Review: https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/lrr/vol1/iss22/4 
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I 
\ L A B O R R E S E A R C H R E V I E W # 2 2 
Silicon Valley 
Labor's High-Tech 
Slumping 
• Amy Dean 
Nestled 50 miles south of San Francisco, Silicon Valley has been touted 
as the model for the future of industrial and corporate America. More 
important, it could serve as a blueprint for deploying the power of labor's 
political action—and doing it right. 
Over the last few years, the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, 
which covers both Santa Clara and San Benito Counties, has been build-
ing a political action program combining a defined local agenda for 
labor with an activist base of volunteers, using the most sophisticated 
tools available to political action groups. At the core of the Council's 
Committee on Political Education (COPE) program is an endorsement 
process that works to build coordination and coalition among the var-
ious sectors of the labor movement. 
Building this program through the local Democratic Party has meant 
that we are able to play a central role in uniting labor and other pro-
gressive organizations into a strong political coalition responsive to 
working-class issues and concerns. Indeed, the Santa Clara County 
Democratic Party may be as close as it gets these days to a labor party. 
Since the South Bay AFL-CIO is the 15th largest in the country, its expe-
• Amy Dean is the business manager and chief executive officer of the South Bay 
AFL-CIO Labor Council. 
/ 
60 Labor Research Review #22 
riences in unifying and coordinating its 110 affiliated local unions serve 
as a good model toward building political power within a local labor 
movement. 
THE LINK: USING TECHNOLOGY TO WIN 
To understand South Bay COPE's approach, it's useful to make some 
general observations about most COPE programs. Too often, whether 
or not there is coordination and definition associated with a labor endorse-
ment, traditional COPE programs gear up to get their candidate elected 
in political isolation, using primitive tools for educating and getting 
union members out to vote. They employ cumbersome manual and 
outdated systems for contacting and tracking union members. Poor 
coordination among local unions means poor use of resources; dupli-
cation, waste, and ineffectiveness are the inevitable results. 
Overall, national AFL-CIO efforts to support the political action 
efforts of Labor Councils throughout the country are not only severely 
understaffed, but also grossly ineffective. Traditional programs start off 
the ejection cycle by ordering lists and mailing labels of union members 
through the national AFL-CIO. The turnaround time on orders through 
the AFL-CIO can be more than two weeks. Information is limited, mak-
ing it impossible to target voters; there is no way of knowing anything 
about other registered voters living within a union household. 
That means that most COPE programs start from scratch each elec-
tion cycle. 
Moreover, by the time information reaches a local council, it has 
gone from an individual local union to its International, then from 
there, over to the AFL-CIO, and finally, back down to local central 
labor councils. Maintaining accuracy is difficult at best, and is made even 
worse when the lag time between collection and dissemination of the 
data can be as long as several years! In the end, a lot of money is spent, 
a lot of hard work and volunteer efforts expended for murky results. It 
seems that traditional COPE programs offer little opportunity to eval-
uate what works and what doesn't. 
In 1991, the Labor Council and 22 locals came together to create a 
tangible value to candidates for winning the local COPE endorsement. 
The Labor Council built the Link—the first locally based union mem-
bership voter file, which now contains tens of thousands of records. It 
is a computerized list of almost every registered and non-registered 
union member living in Santa Clara and San Benito Counties. Begin-
ning with membership lists collected from each local union, the data 
is enhanced with additional information to yield a wealth of knowl-
Labor and Political Action 61 
edge. We know the full name and address of each union member and 
registered voter within a union household. The database contains a wide 
variety of information including political district lines, party affiliation, 
age, gender, voter history, registration status, party makeup of household, 
telephone number, voter frequency codes, and phone-response data. 
The Link arms labor's political action program and local COPE-
endorsed candidates with the necessary and most modern technology 
available. It better targets those members most likely to volunteer and 
vote and those occasional voters, reaching out to whom can mean the 
margin of victory. Better targeting brings better use of resources and 
volunteer time. This means reaching out to those who most need to 
hear from us, engaging those most likely to be supporters, and writing 
off those least likely to listen to our message. Better data means know-
ing a lot more about the people COPE is trying to communicate with. 
It lets COPE personalize the political message, rather than randomly 
contacting all union members on a list. We estimate that our method-
ology has increased threefold the number of voters potentially influenced. 
At the outset of each election cycle (both primary and general elec-
tions), the most up-to-date membership information from our "linked 
locals" is forwarded to the South Bay Labor Council. By using a uni-
form file format to gather this information, the individual local files 
are then easily merged. These files are then matched up against the 
local county registrar of voters lists and enhanced with other demo-
graphic data, which is purchased. The completed file is then returned 
to and maintained at the Labor Council. 
/ 
\ 
62 Labor Research Review #22 
By rebuilding the file once before a primary election and once before 
the general election, we gain substantial list accuracy. We can also com-
pare Car data with that from the national AFL-CIO. During the 1992 
primary and general elections, the Link's lists had an error rate of 14% 
compared to a 28% error rate on the AFL-CIO lists. Even though we 
had a 100% increase in accuracy compared to the AFL-CIO data, there 
is still room for improvement. 
The Link's key feature was the addition of all registered voters living 
in a union household. This increased the raw file size by 25%, but the 
value we gained was much greater. By knowing how many additional 
registered voters lived in a union household, we were able to convey our 
message to family members of the targeted voters, thereby reducing 
our "callbacks." This becomes particularly valuable in local city coun-
cil races and in hotly contested races where the margin of victory is 
within three to five percentage points. 
The Link also gives us a way to easily target groups of voters. For 
example, we identified voters who lived in precincts strategically impor-
tant to campaigns that needed specialized outreach. So we "linked" 
particular precincts where neighborhood meetings ("coffees") needed 
to be held or where the candidate required a special push for lawn signs 
and neighborhood headquarters. We could also separate loyal Demo-
cratic households from households with mixed registration status so 
that we could tailor our campaign message depending on the audience. 
All of these targeting features not only improve the success of our 
overall operations, but also increase the value of labor's program to 
COPE-endorsed candidates by making sure money is spent well and vol-
Labor and Political Action 63 
unteer efforts sharply focused. Since the Link allows us to measure results, 
we can attest to its effectiveness: in 1992, labor voters comprised at least 
30% of the total margin of victory of each COPE-endorsed candidate. 
VALUE ADDED TO A COPE ENDORSEMENT 
Once a candidate or ballot measure has won a sole endorsement from 
South Bay COPE, a tailor-made program to meet the campaign's spe-
cific needs is put together. Traditional, immediate needs like lawn signs 
and other advertising mechanisms for increasing name recognition are 
quickly accomplished. But labor's contribution to targeted races during 
an election cycle do not start or stop here. COPE doesn't just advertise, 
we educate. 
Rather than the traditional shotgun approach to reaching out to 
union households, South Bay COPE outreach efforts are staged. Phone 
banking in the early part of a campaign generates volunteerism and 
activism within a particular district, as opposed to simply getting the 
candidate's name out to our members. 
Not only will this activity benefit the immediate campaign, but over 
time, as we build more information into our database about the vol-
unteer efforts of otherwise unidentified union-household members, the 
COPE program can draw directly on those people at the outset of an 
election cycle in any particular district, jump-starting the campaign and 
building local momentum. The exciting part about making these con-
tacts is that most are with members not already part of our core activist 
base. 
Further in the election cycle, our efforts tend to be more traditional 
COPE activities, such as phone banking, increasing candidates' name 
identification, and getting out the vote (GOTV). W e focus on occa-
sional voters and swing voters as the targeted universe for these out-
reach efforts. 
Normally, COPE programs simply tell members who their union is 
supporting and expect that this information will yield their support. 
The Link's voter files gives the council an accurate reading on the key 
issues on voters' minds, improves our ability to tailor messages, and 
increases the timeliness between phone and mail contacts. Informal 
polling in a district defines a set of priority issues. A list of the top three 
to five are used in the solicitation of undecided voters. Each evening, 
after volunteers have phoned union members and asked which issues 
are most important to them in a local race, the responses are scanned 
back into the voter file. Direct mail can then be sent that not only talks 
about a particular candidate, but also describes the candidate's posi-
64 Labor Research Review #22 
tion on the issues the member identified as most important. 
From a modest start, the Link is now a key resource for local candidates. 
During the 1992 San Jose City Council races, the volume of activity, voter 
contact, and technical expertise in COPE-endorsed campaigns greatly 
increased. On a nightly basis, the results from labor's voter-contact efforts 
were shared with each local campaign. Often this was the only regular 
polling information the campaign had at its disposal. This type of infor-
mation is invaluable to many campaigns as they make decisions about 
directing or redirecting their own resources. 
These processes have greatly changed labor's political role. In the 
past, labor was cut off from the campaign and the candidate who, in 
the end, has only a vague idea of labor's contribution to his/her elec-
tion. To increase the visibility of labor's political efforts, we ask candi-
dates to observe the local operation and spend time with union volunteers. 
Beyond simple visibility, the effectiveness of our process allows mem-
bers of South Bay COPE to participate directly in a candidate's campaign 
by serving on a candidate's "kitchen cabinet." During the 1992 election 
cycle, there was not a single campaign where labor did not serve in this 
capacity. In addition to the highest strategic level of a campaign, COPE 
designates local representatives as the official COPE liaison to a cam-
paign's neighborhood headquarters or operations. In 1992, COPE des-
ignated local liaisons to three assembly races and three San Jose City 
Council races. This unprecedented level of involvement gave COPE a 
critical role within the various campaigns that did not go unnoticed by 
the candidates. 
\ 
Labor and Political Action 65 
BUILDING POWER THROUGH ELECTORAL COALITIONS 
Santa Clara County is an important county in California; it is a swing 
county. It is common knowledge among political pundits that you need 
to win Santa Clara County to win a statewide campaign. To this end, 
the South Bay Labor Council and the Santa Clara County Democratic 
Party have had more than just a close working relationship throughout 
the years. Many local unions initially defined part of their independent 
political action programs by participating in building the grassroots 
infrastructure of the local Democratic Party. Unions such as the United 
Food and Commercial Workers, SEIU, and building-trades locals have 
had years of involvement in providing not just the financing, but the 
troops for our local party. 
It was the drive to focus the full weight of labor's political potential 
that led to our involvement in building the United Democratic Cam-
paign (UDC). The UDC, a three-tiered coalition of labor, elected offi-
cials, and the Democratic Party, creates a structure through which labor 
can activate its political machinery. It means that in Santa Clara County, 
progressive forces are already organized to create a campaign capable 
of educating and mobilizing voters countywide. Pooling resources means 
minimizing the duplication of voter-contact efforts, so political activists 
can reach a larger percentage of the electorate during a given election 
cycle. 
The experience of organized labor in Santa Clara County has been 
one of building political power in coalition with other progressive organi-
zations and interests countywide. We see ourselves not as party hacks 
or political loyalists, but as co-owners of a vehicle through which 
progressive groups can come together to elect candidates committed 
to a broadly defined political agenda. Forming an electoral coalition is 
a good beginning, but we also have a long way to go: we must begin to 
think about different ways in which we participate in the political 
process. For example, during political primaries, where the choices 
among candidates are fairly lackluster, labor should begin reserving PAC 
dollars for independent issues-based campaigns. In place of traditional 
political action efforts, labor should organize town hall meetings, tele-
vised debates, and broadly sponsored forums on issues such as jobs, 
education, and the environment. Not allowing elections to become the 
politics of personality depends on our ability to generate authentic 
debate and discussion. 
Further, holding labor-backed candidates accountable after they get 
elected depends, in large part, on the endorsement process. At the 
national and state levels, it has become too easy for candidates to proffer 
\ 66 Labor Research Review #22 
the proper platitudes 
during a COPE en-
dorsement interview 
and win labor's PAC 
dollars and infra-
structure support. 
Labor must create a 
new set of expecta-
tions from candidates. 
We should think 
about linking our sup-
port for a candidate to 
the candidate's sup-
port of our coalition 
partners. We need to 
beef up our endorse-
ment process by not 
limiting our issues to 
specific legislation 
and particular bills. 
We need to have 
candidates under-
stand that we seek 
real support for our 
organizations. 
Although the Santa 
Bay Labor Council 
began altering tradi-
tional habits a long time ago, we have not gone far enough. Our next 
step is to refine, and in many ways redefine, what it means to be a labor-
endorsed candidate. Creation of a labor platform is the logical progres-
sion in our political evolution. 
A labor platform will ask candidates to commit to, and to sign onto, 
a broadly defined agenda that acknowledges working people and their 
unions as an important and valuable community resource not just dur-
ing the campaign season but throughout the year. This platform will 
call for elected officials to use their public stature during organizing 
drives to encourage employees seeking workplace representation. See-
ing unions as the voice of all workers, organized and unorganized, would 
be an additional expectation. It is not enough for candidates to take 
this position during an endorsement interview; they must be willing to 
state their support publicly. 
\ 
Labor and Political Action 67 
Achieving a labor platform does not necessarily mean the creation of 
a labor party. Rather, it is about redirecting and rededicating our political 
resources to affect the changes we seek in the political process. Whether 
or not progressive forces coalesce within or outside of the Democratic 
Party is not the central question. Rather, we must strive for the creation 
of an agenda appealing to a broad base of people. Political action that 
works relies on the basics—invigorating our memberships and con-
stituencies to do battle on behalf of their own interests. • 
THE CONSERVATIVE AGENDA 


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