By David Shapiro

Hawai'i's controlling political force since 1962 has been the alliance of labor unions and the Democratic Party that carried John A. Burns to power as the state's first Democratic governor, and kept the party in charge ever since.

The 2002 election will sternly test whether the labor coalition still has legs in Hawai'i's first pivotal vote of the 21st century.

Lt. Gov. Mazie Hirono and D.G. "Andy" Anderson are betting their campaigns for governor on organized labor's past clout in swinging close elections.

But Rep. Ed Case disdains union support in campaigning for smaller government — including a reduced public work force. He appears to be gaining momentum two months before the primary election.

Republican Linda Lingle, like Case a longtime advocate of privatizing government services and reforming civil service, is no natural ally of labor. But she's making soothing noises to union members to exploit Democratic disorder and poach rank-and-file support.

Unions, especially public employees, have been politically dispirited since their support handed Gov. Ben Cayetano a narrow victory over Lingle in 1998.

Public workers felt betrayed when Cayetano stepped up his campaign for civil service reform after winning re-election and dragged out an ugly dispute with schoolteachers.

The 2001 Legislature infuriated public workers by passing bills to permit privatized government services, end binding arbitration for white-collar civil servants and roll back health insurance costs.

Public- and private-sector unions split in the 2000 Honolulu mayoral election, and Republicans gained seven seats in the state House of Representatives that year to further dilute labor's influence.

Last Labor Day, union leaders vowed to heed the wake-up call, but they've failed to unite workers in the public and private sectors or force lawmakers to repeal any of the 2001 civil service reforms.

Labor is split between Hirono and Anderson in the Democratic primary, with little apparent enthusiasm for either. Several key unions may not endorse at all, strengthening the hand of Case — and ultimately Lingle.

Many Democratic lawmakers have come to see their cozy relationship with government employees as a liability that opens them to accusations that they're more concerned with serving public workers than the public at large.

The teachers' union gave 40 percent of its 2002 legislative endorsements to Republicans, who have a legitimate shot at winning control of the House for the first time in a half-century.

This dramatic change in political dynamics has been 30 years in the making, and leaves labor no easy way out of its dilemma.

When Burns last stood for election in 1970, the driving labor force was the ILWU and the tens of thousands of sugar and pineapple workers the union represented. Plantation workers weren't just allied with the Democrats; they were the soul of the party that had risen to power on their backs.

Public workers, who had just won the right to organize, were barely a blip on the political radar in 1970.

That changed when the sugar and pineapple industries collapsed, and public employees grew into the state's largest bloc of unionized workers. They aligned with Democrats, but never were the party's soul as the plantation workers had been.

In fact, critics say the alliance lost its soul when concern shifted from broad public interests, such as improving education for children of union members, to the narrow private interests of improving wages, benefits and working conditions for school employees.

It's far too soon to count out labor as a leading force in Hawai'i politics, but unions desperately need to find new models for exerting their influence in changing times.

David Shapiro can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.