David Bonior: From Capitol Hill Leader to Labor Organizer

Bonior: From Capitol Hill Leader to Labor Organizer
By Finlay Lewis, CQ Staff


David E. Bonior is one politician organized labor knows it can trust. During his 26-year career on Capitol Hill, the one-time House Democratic whip never hesitated to use his leadership power on and off the floor to advance the interests of unions — even to the point of battling with his friends.

After a failed bid for governor of Michigan in 2002 that cut short his career in Congress, Bonior eschewed the usual post-lawmaker career path of K Street lobbyist, instead settling in as chairman of American Rights at Work, a Washington-based coordinating and research group focused on promoting union organizing efforts. But Barack Obama ’s election opened up a far more expansive range of opportunities for the veteran politician from Detroit’s suburbs. Bonior quickly signed up for duty on the president-elect’s economic transition team, while throwing cold water on early speculation that he would be an attractive name on the short list for secretary of Labor. He said he had “other things to do.”

What he had in mind became clear when he and other transition planners laid down the law to labor’s feuding factions to settle their differences and throw more weight behind the new president by speaking with one voice.

It was scarcely surprising that Bonior was the choice — with the White House’s tacit support — to heal the schism that opened in union ranks when seven dissenting unions split from the AFL-CIO in 2005. But it remains to be seen whether he can find a way to balance competing leadership ambitions and the differing perspectives of industrial unionists, service workers and white-collar professionals.

The idea behind the Bonior-led National Labor Coordinating Committee is to build a united front among more than 16 million union members to capitalize on a recent growth in membership and to reconfigure the traditional union model for a post-industrial, service-providing economy.

Not incidentally, a reunited labor movement might also advance an agenda that puts special emphasis on health care and stimulating the economy. Meanwhile, all of labor’s factions share the objective of passing the Employee Free Choice Act, the politically charged card-check bill that would rewrite labor relations laws to help unions add to their numbers.

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