[marxmail] Kellogs Strike leader runs for Senate as independent in Nebraska

Anthony Boynton Sun, 18 Feb 2024 06:40:16 -0800

The fact that there is no Democrat in this race lessens the independence of 
this race, but not by much

*A Union Leader in Nebraska Tries to Leap to the Senate on Labor’s Strength*

Dan Osborn led a strike in 2021 against the Kellogg’s plant in Omaha. Now he is
challenging Senator Deb Fischer as an independent in deep-red Nebraska.

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Dan Osborn at his home in Omaha. Credit...David Robert Elliott for The New York
Times

( https://www.nytimes.com/by/jonathan-weisman )

*By Jonathan Weisman ( https://www.nytimes.com/by/jonathan-weisman )*

Reporting from Omaha.

Feb. 18, 2024Updated 6:51 a.m. ET

In 2021, as the first Halloween decorations were coming out in Omaha, Neb., a
mechanic named Dan Osborn led 500 of his fellow union members out of the
Kellogg’s cereal plant on F Street and onto the picket lines.

The strike, which involved over 1,400 workers across multiple plants, would
last for a difficult 77 days, through brutal storms (
https://www.vice.com/en/article/jg8y3p/the-kelloggs-worker-in-this-viral-photo-told-us-why-hes-braving-the-storm
) and imported strikebreakers and the threat of summary dismissals (
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/business/economy/kellogg-strike-biden.html )
, which drew the attention of President Biden. A first contract was soundly
rejected (
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/07/business/kellogg-workers-strike.html ) by
the union, then a second finally ended the walkout (
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/business/economy/kellogg-union-strike-contract.html
) , just before Christmas.

Now Mr. Osborn, 48, is trying to do something considerably harder: win a United
States Senate seat as an independent in the deep-red state of Nebraska.

Mr. Osborn’s long-shot bid (
https://twitter.com/OsbornForSenate/status/1704858443960463420 ) to defeat Deb
Fischer, Nebraska’s Republican senior senator, in November, or even come close,
will test whether the rising power of an energized union movement (
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/16/business/economy/union-leaders-teamsters-uaw-hollywood.html
) can translate to high elective office during an election year when working
class voters will likely decide the next president, and the direction of the
country.

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)

The rail unions of western Nebraska first approached him last year to mount a
bid, and a December survey from a left-leaning group called Change Research (
https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/observers-question-poll-indicating-a-close-us-senate-race-between-deb-fischer-and-dan-osborn/
) put Mr. Osborn up on Ms. Fischer, at 40 percent over her 38 percent. It is a
questionable result, as even Mr. Osborn’s supporters concede, but enough to
capture imaginations in a one-party state that has long receded from the
national political conversation.

With no Democrat in the race, the Nebraska Democratic Party is likely to
endorse Mr. Osborn at a meeting on March 2, the party chairwoman, Jane Kleeb,
said, though Mr. Osborn said he was not sure he wants that. The state
A.F.L.-C.I.O. will back him at a gathering in late March, and national unions
are taking a close look.

But can a union leader with no political experience find an agenda that
transcends the two political parties and appeals narrowly to blue-collar
wallets? And can that leader find the money to put that message out farther
west, beyond the urban centers of Omaha and Lincoln?

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Image

Kirk Peters waves to passing cars as they honk in support of Kellogg's workers
on strike along I Street in Omaha, Neb., in 2021. Credit...Lily Smith/Omaha
World-Herald, via Associated Press

“I’ve gone up against a major American corporation,” Mr. Osborn said as he cut
into a steak Tuesday night. “I stood up for what I thought was right, and I
won.”

The Fischer campaign appears to be treating Mr. Osborn as a nuisance, not as a
serious threat to her bid for a third term.

*Labor Organizing and Union Drives*

* *Labor Board:* In the latest sign of a growing backlash within corporate
America to the federal agency that enforces labor rights, Amazon argued in a
legal filing that the National Labor Relations Board was unconstitutional (
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/business/economy/amazon-labor-nlrb.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-labor-movement&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc
).
* *S.E.I.U.:* Mary Kay Henry, the president of the Service Employees
International Union, one of the nation’s largest and most politically powerful
labor unions, said that she would step down after 14 years in her position (
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/06/business/economy/seiu-union-mary-kay-henry.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-labor-movement&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc
).
* *Dartmouth:* A federal official said that members of the Dartmouth men’s
basketball team were university employees (
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/05/business/dartmouth-basketball-nlrb-union.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-labor-movement&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc
) , clearing a path for the team to take a vote that could make it the first
unionized college sports program in the country.
* *New York Daily News:* Journalists at the newspaper walked off the job (
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/25/business/media/new-york-daily-news-walkoff-one-day.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-labor-movement&variant=show&region=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_top_links_recirc
) for the first time in more than three decades to protest staffing cuts, as
well as a new policy that requires workers to get advance approval for overtime.

“Deb Fischer has actual, strong and deep support all across the state,
including 93 bipartisan county chairs and over 1,000 endorsements,” Derek Oden,
her campaign manager, said. “She is proud of her longstanding support from
members of Nebraska labor unions and is willing to work with any Nebraskan to
make life easier for working families across our state.” The campaign cited
three firefighters’ unions as well as the carpenters and electricians who
backed her six years ago.

Mr. Osborn’s attempt to leap from leader of his local to member of the U.S.
Senate has little precedent, almost akin to the five failed presidential bids
of the celebrated labor leader Eugene V. Debs early last century.

Union members in other states have made the jump to elective office, like Tim
Walz, the governor of Minnesota, and Brandon Johnson, the mayor of Chicago. The
New Jersey A.F.L.-C.I.O. has trained 1,300 members to run for office over the
past 27 years, with a success rate of 76 percent.

Those seeking office receive instruction in campaigning, opposition research,
election law, campaign finance, public speaking and handling the press, said
Charles Wowkanech, the president of the New Jersey A.F.L.-C.I.O. In a heavily
unionized, Democratic state, the program identifies and contacts every union
member in a given district, and, often, they account for more than enough votes
to win.

That is not the situation in lightly unionized Nebraska, where 9.4 percent of
workers ( https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/union2.pdf ) are represented.
But even in New Jersey, where 17.3 percent are, the highest office sought has
been the U.S. House of Representatives, where a union electrician who went
through the program, Donald Norcross, holds the First Congressional District.

“We modeled the labor candidate program after apprenticeship programs,” Mr.
Wowkanech said. “You don’t start as a journeyman earning top rate. You work
your way up.”

In 2018, Randy Bryce, who is known as “ Iron Stache (
https://twitter.com/IronStache ) ,” captured liberal imaginations and a lot of
money as an iron worker (and the secretary of the Racine County Labor Council)
running for the house seat of retiring Speaker Paul D. Ryan in Wisconsin. He
lost by more than 12 percentage points.

Image

Senator Deb Fischer at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing at the U.S.
Capitol in Washington, D.C., in 2021. Credit...Sarahbeth Maney/The New York
Times

“There definitely are ways to reach across the aisle, but it’s getting rougher
every year, that civil divide,” Mr. Bryce said. “We’ve got to find reasons to
talk to each other again, and working people running for office is a start.”

Soft-spoken and earnest, Mr. Osborn is not exactly Norma Rae (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvqpyDWvDyE ) , the brash protagonist of the
1979 film that dramatized the plight of workers and the struggle to organize in
the South. Kellogg’s management fired him a year ago, accusing him of watching
Netflix while on the job, a charge he and his friends called trumped up. He is
now an apprentice with the steamfitters’ union, still working on heating and
air conditioning systems (
https://twitter.com/OsbornForSenate/status/1748558708727038141 ) as he gets his
campaign in gear. He’s also a father of three children between the ages of 16
and 21. His wife is the general manager of a bar and grill in Omaha.

“He’s not pounding his fist on the table,” said Danny Begley, an Omaha City
Council member and vice president of the International Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers Local 1483. “He’s measured. He’s calculated.”

Mr. Osborn, who said he was a Democrat until 2016, wants to run on a narrow
platform with what he hopes is extremely broad appeal: legalize marijuana (at
least for medical use), raise the minimum wage nationally, secure abortion
rights, protect gun rights and expand laws to facilitate union organizing. He
condemns the inflation of the Biden era, but blames corporate greed and price
gouging. He speaks of the U.S. border in distinctly Republican ways.

“Without borders you don’t have a country,” he said, though he added that once
the border is closed, Congress should explore ways to legalize some
undocumented workers already in the U.S.

Early in Israel’s war in Gaza, campaign advisers told him to put out a
statement staking a position. He refused, saying that it was not an issue he
wants associated with his campaign.

“Dan has to get a message out that transcends political lines and goes to their
pocketbooks,” said Josh Josoff, an ally with the International Union of
Elevator Constructors. “Don’t let the wedge issues pull you away.”

On the one issue he most certainly will not be able to escape, the presidential
campaign, he seemed genuinely befuddled. Nebraska is overwhelmingly behind
Donald J. Trump, as is Ms. Fischer. Mr. Osborn is not, a potential campaign
killer this November. But he is not backing President Biden either.

“I think they’re both too old; I think they’re both incompetent,” he said,
finally settling on a position. “There’s a good chance I won’t vote for
president.”

Image

Josh Josoff, an ally of Mr. Osborn, is a member of the International Union of
Elevator Constructors. Credit...David Robert Elliott for The New York Times

Bob Kerrey — a once-popular Democratic governor and senator in Nebraska who, in
2012, tried and failed at a comeback against Ms. Fischer (
https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2012/results/states/nebraska.html ) in her
first run for the Senate — is a fan of Mr. Osborn, but is also a skeptic.

“He’s got a hard-core economic agenda, and he has a really unique profile,” Mr.
Kerrey said. “You can’t say, ‘Well, what do you know about what we’re going
through?’ because he does. He knows that the rules don’t work for working
people.”

But Nebraska is stacked against Mr. Osborn. West of Lincoln are some of the
largest rail yards in the country, but the freight rail companies, backed by
Nebraska Republicans, have manhandled the rail unions, which were the first to
ask Mr. Osborn to run after a new contract failed (
https://nptelegraph.com/news/local/business/union-pacific-sick-leave-conductors-union/article_4f5539ea-1d9d-11ee-a9c1-bb9bfde3b682.html
) to grant their demand of seven paid sick days a year. Such unions may have
limited power to deliver North Platte and points west.

The state’s junior senator and former Republican governor, Pete Ricketts, is
the other obstacle to Mr. Osborn’s bid. He comes from a family of financiers
worth billions of dollars, and he is more than willing to spend it.

Just ask Crista Eggers, who has been trying to legalize medical marijuana since
2019 to treat her son, Colton, who suffers daily epileptic seizures that his
physicians believe are treatable with cannabis. Only three states still
prohibit medical marijuana, though polls suggest 70 percent to 80 percent of
Nebraskans support it. One of those people opposed is Mr. Ricketts, who
declared (
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/03/12/nebraska-gov-pete-ricketts-legal-marijuana-kill-your-kids/4663466001/
) as governor, “If you legalize marijuana, you’re going to kill your kids.”

In 2020, Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana got 197,000 signatures, in more than
enough counties to get a legalization referendum on the ballot. But the
Nebraska Supreme Court struck it (
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/us/drug-marijuana-legalization-ballot-measures.html
) from consideration on a technicality. Supporters tried again in 2022 but
came up short of signatures. Ms. Eggers and her group are now at it again,
hoping for some synergy with a ballot drive to protect abortion rights and with
Mr. Osborn’s campaign, though the group is prohibited from endorsing him.

A problem for Ms. Eggers, and for Mr. Osborn, is money. Signature drives are
costly, and 90 of Nebraska’s 93 counties are rural, adding to the challenge.
Mr. Osborn himself has little name recognition statewide, and would require an
introduction in the form of television ads and a robust campaign schedule, both
expensive endeavors. Union supporters are optimistic that Mr. Osborn’s message
resonates against Ms. Fischer, if he has the cash to get it out.

“We just need to push past the Republican and Democrat thing, these teams we’re
on,” said Josh Dredla, a friend of Mr. Osborn’s who was on the Kellogg’s picket
lines.

Mr. Osborn said at a minimum the campaign needs to raise $2 million. So far,
he’s raised just over $200,000.

Ms. Fischer ended 2023 sitting on a war chest (
https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00498907/ ) of close to $3.3 million.

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[marxmail] Kellogs Strike leader runs for Senate as independent in Nebraska

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