Passage of the Washington State Labor Council’s top 2009 legislative priority bill looked fairly certain.

In 2008, Gov. Chris Gregoire and House Speaker Frank Chopp expressed support for the Worker Privacy Act at WSLC conventions. In the fall, thanks in no small measure to labor’s support, Gregoire was re-elected and Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown retained strong Democratic majorities.

"Workers should not be compelled to attend meetings about particular religious or political beliefs that they may not share," Brown said in February at the WSLC Legislative Conference.

The Worker Privacy Act had unanimously been approved as part of the State Democratic Party platform. It had 47 sponsors in the House and 21 in the Senate. Vote counts, conducted both by its supporters and its opponents, indicated the Worker Privacy Act would pass.

But it didn’t even get a vote.

Gregoire, Brown and Chopp decided to kill the bill, blaming an e-mail from this organization (see Page 1 story).

Now, there is a deep division between organized labor and the Democratic leadership. All three of these leaders have been strong advocates for Washington’s working families in the past. But not only did they kill labor’s priority legislation in 2009, the concerns of business interests superseded those of working families on a multitude of issues, from unemployment insurance to collective bargaining to the budget. And the circumstances of the Worker Privacy Act’s suppression revealed a schism disturbingly deeper than mere disagreements on policy issues.

On what planet is it a potentially criminal threat to suggest that political contributions may be withheld from a party if its leaders actively kill your priority bill?! The WSLC e-mail was clearly an internal labor report, never intended for legislators, and immediately retracted—with apologies—once we learned it was inadvertently sent to some (all of whom were WPA sponsors).

It’s about basic respect. Political leaders must do more than talk the talk to union members. Worse, they mustn’t say one thing and do the opposite.

We ask that political leaders show us respect by being straightforward and telling us what they think. If support for an issue is conditional on acceptance by the business community or something else, say so. Don’t parse words or speak in vague political code, like "supporting the issue," but "having concerns" about the actual bill. Tell us your concerns so we can allay them or work together to address them.

And most of all, don’t take labor’s support for granted.

I’ve seen it happen many times in my career as a legislator and union leader. The party in control begins to focus more on preserving its majority than it does on actively pursuing its own agenda. Constituencies get taken for granted. After all, where are they gonna go? To the other guys?!

But guess what? Time and again throughout history, the political pendulum has swung back to the other guys, despite the best efforts of very smart people. Those efforts usually involved a defensive posture, postponing or ignoring your supporters’ issues and focusing instead on not offending your critics.

That’s how political majorities disappear. They don’t fall victim to good political slogans or TV ads. Voters don’t decide they are more liberal or conservative, more Democratic or Republican —especially not in Washington state.

Majorities disappear because people begin to feel they aren’t being represented. They feel like the party in charge is self-serving and out of touch. So voters either switch allegiances or they drop out and stay home on Election Day.

That’s what happened in 1994.

In 1993, Democrats in Congress passed the North American Free Trade Agreement, putting corporate interests ahead of those of labor, environmentalists and the public. House Democratic leaders in Olympia told labor leaders in 1994 that they had no place else to go.

In that fall’s election, Democratic majorities both in Congress and the State Legislature were lost. The State House of Representatives went from 65 Democrats to just 36 in one election.

Where did labor go? They stayed home. Union households accounted for just 14% of the vote in 1994, five points less than in 1992. It was the lowest percentage ever recorded—before or since. By comparison, union households accounted for 21% of the vote last fall.

Will 2010 be another 1994? Some very smart people think it won’t. But they’ve been wrong before.