This Labor Day, San Diego's 117th annual work stoppage, the politically traded stock of labor appears to be ticking up as the economy dives into recession.
Last year, Sen. Barack Obama told Iowa union activists that he would walk picket lines if he's elected president.
A sitting president hitting the bricks?
In a domestic sense, that's more radical than going head-to-head with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
While introducing herself to the nation Friday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's surprise pick as his Republican running mate, made a point of telling the crowd that her husband, Todd, is a proud member of the Steelworkers Union of America. McCain stressed that Palin also has been a union member.
That working-class credential isn't your typical GOP talking point. A country-club membership, maybe. But a made-in-America union label?
In 2008, blue-collar men and women, the so-called Hillary voters, are riding high in the Caterpillar seat.
In San Diego County, unions traditionally have kept a modest, if not servile, profile, working with the power brokers at the Chamber of Commerce.
In 1891, the year of the first Labor Day parade, the San Diego Federated Trades and Labor Council organized itself into existence, but it reflected the conservative, Midwestern, small-town mentality of the city itself.
During the first nine months of 1912, however, San Diego created headlines around the country as members of the Industrial Workers of the World, known as Wobblies, flooded into town and tried to organize transit and retail workers.
Captains of local industry, men like John D. Spreckels, were having none of it. A ban on “street-talking” was declared in a downtown zone that included the Plaza, or “Soapbox Row.”
During nine months of riots and vigilante terror, defiant Wobblies clogged the jails and courts. On May 10, 5,000 free-speech demonstrators were sprayed with fire hoses.
“An awe-struck American patriot wrapped himself in the flag to test its efficacy against police outrage,” the pro-worker Oakland World reported, “but he was knocked down and jailed and fined $30 for insulting the national emblem.”
After a Wobbly was shot and killed by police, both sides stood down, the Wobblies left and normalcy returned.
Joe Hill, the Wobbly troubadour immortalized in a ballad, reportedly called San Diego a “jerkwater town” and “not worth a whoop in hell from the rebel's point of view.”
Last week, a North County city council candidate was touting her political endorsements though her foremost rival had won the support of the police and firefighter unions.
“So he's the public-safety candidate,” I said, trying out a line her opponent might use on mailers.
“No,” she said. “He's the union candidate.
There it is, the corrosive spin.
In San Diego, unions, especially municipal unions, have evolved into muscular special interests that divide the electorate. Having their support is a plus or minus, depending upon which side of the bed – right or left – you get up on. But no one can dispute their surging influence in front of – and behind – the scenes.
This Labor Day, however, there will be no organized parades. No fire-breathing populist speeches. No sunny picnics.
But there will be drama.
This year, the holiday will be celebrated with photogenic protests down by the bay, said Anthony Saavedra, a spokesman for the San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council.
A group of union activists will gather outside the Manchester Grand Hyatt to challenge allegedly poor working conditions for hotel workers. (For owner Doug Manchester, it's yet another affliction to add to the boycott by gay groups angry over the hotel developer's high-profile opposition to same-sex marriage.)
In a sort of two-fer, the union members also will protest Proposition B, the proposed development of the nearby 10th Avenue terminal that labor believes will threaten waterfront jobs.
Call it a working holiday.
The other day, I went in to pick up my car after an oil change and checkup. In explaining the bill, the office manager said that the charge for labor was zero.
I asked why. Simple, she said.
The garage was saving more than $2,000 a month because it had stopped advertising with the Yellow Pages. For the past two months and the foreseeable future, the savings are being passed on to customers.
I asked her how new customers will find the garage.
“Oh, they just Google 'Encinitas' and 'mechanic,' ” she said.
I confess, I was pleased with the tiny windfall. Until I thought about it.
The Yellow Pages, the trusty barker for small-and medium-size businesses, lost an advertiser, just as this newspaper has lost revenue from cost-driven decisions to abandon the printed page.
Someday, and it's not many years off, the last newspaper will hit the last American porch. During that inexorable change of the American habit of mind, countless old-economy jobs will be retired.
Into that sea of high anxiety, populated by workers of all fields and collar colors, the presidential candidates cast their nets.
Logan Jenkins: (760) 737-7555; logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com
