Conversation with Al Achtner
Iowa Organizing
Not long after the Labor Party’s November convention, LP members
in Johnson County, Iowa, applied to be an organizing committee under the new rules
convention delegates had adopted. We talked recently with Al Achtner of the newly formed
Johnson County, Iowa, Labor Party Organizing Committee.
What’s your job?
I’ve been a national rep for the American Federation of Government
Employees for the past six years. We represent primarily VA hospital employees, civilian
airforce base employees, USDA food inspectors, and some INS and prison workers. I’m
also vice president of the Iowa City Federation of Labor.
How did you come to be
active in the Labor Party?
Well, it was kind of interesting. A few years ago, people in AFGE were
encouraging me to get more involved politically. I had been very active in the local
Democrats, and in fact technically, I’m still on their county steering committee. The
union assigned me to run for delegate to the Democratic National Convention. And I thought
— that’s great! So I announced my candidacy, I gave speeches and handed out
literature. And I managed to win.
Well, between the time I was elected a delegate and the time of the
convention, Clinton gave us welfare repeal and what I call the "Freedom to Farm for
Nothing Act," which was a major piece of legislation in this part of the country.
[The Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act, signed by Clinton in April 1996,
phases out farm support programs.]
I felt very betrayed. By the time I got to the national convention, I
almost felt like voting for Ralph Nader. And then that fall they snuck a piece of
legislation through Congress that exempted VA hospitals from cost comparisons when they
want to do contracting out.
By election day, I was finished with Bill Clinton. And then, with AFGE
getting on board with the Labor Party, I just kept moving in that direction.
What kind of response
do you get when you
go out and talk to people
about the Labor Party?
It’s not very hard at all to get people to the point of realizing
that there are two Republican parties and that the system is failing us. What’s
difficult is convincing them that the answer is to finally give up on the Democrats. They
want to think that if only we worked a little harder at it, the Democrats would come back
around. That’s the hurdle.
How did you get the local
organizing committee started?
The Labor Party here got started back a few years ago when Jonathan Kissam
was here as a graduate student at the University of Iowa. He helped organize the Coalition
of Graduate Students, and they affiliated with UE, which of course is a big supporter of
the Labor Party. And he started to put together a local Labor Party. Jonathan moved to
Vermont last spring, and since then, I’ve sort of picked up the mantle.
We decided the first doable thing to organize would be to try to get the
Iowa City Federation of Labor to endorse the Labor Party. We had a lot of Labor Party
supporters who were delegates to the city fed, and we decided to go for an affiliation
vote. We spent nine months gradually building up support in preparation for a vote. And
finally, about a year ago, the federation did vote to affiliate. One reason we wanted to
have that affiliation is that we wanted to make it clear that the Labor Party is working
hand-in-hand with the AFL-CIO and the labor movement.
We became a Labor Party chapter last June. But we knew that there was
going to be a transition from chapters to organizing committees, so we kind of made the
transition early on. So far, we only have about 35 members. We pick them up a little at a
time. But we have a lot of great plans!
Describe the organizing
plan you came up with.
We are targeting Iowa’s First Congressional District. Iowa has five
CDs, and of the five, the First CD is the most liberal, and has the most union density.
It’s been represented by a Republican, Jim Leach, for a long time. The Democrats who
have challenged him have gotten as little as 25 or 30 percent of the vote.
We will be concentrating on the three population centers in this CD: Cedar
Rapids, Iowa City, and the Quad Cities. Our aim is to establish a chapter in the CD —
which means we have to organize 250 people into the Labor Party here. Eventually, we want
to meet the criteria for running a candidate. And I think we can do that.
We will need to get another central labor council on board and four or
five more local unions. We’ve got sympathizers and members in several different
unions, and we’re trying to use them to introduce ourselves at union monthly
meetings. We’ve got a good shot at making presentations at locals of IBEW, AFGE,
AFSCME, and the Coalition of Graduate Students. Together, these represent 80 percent of
the union members in the area.
Right now, we’re working on a campaign to oppose a local sales tax
plan. The local AFL-CIO is working on this, too. We did a forum on it a few weeks ago
which was videotaped and has been showing on public access TV. Our next step is yard
signs, which we’ll be getting people to put up. We’ll also probably take out
some newspaper ads.
After we get through with the tax issue, we want to pick up Just
Healthcare. We’d like to study what the Massachusetts Labor Party did to win their
healthcare referendum in Boston and see if we can do a nonbinding resolution like that
here in Iowa. |
