Candidates Don't Count Unions Out

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/30/AR2007093001508.html

Though Membership Has Fallen, Democrats Still Court Labor

By Alec MacGillis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, October 1, 2007; Page A08

In Detroit last week, one of America's most storied unions agreed to shoulder the long-term burden of members' health-care costs, a reluctant recognition of the brutal economic forces that have been weighing on its industry.

Meanwhile, not far away in Chicago, members of other big unions gathered to listen as the top Democratic presidential candidates paid fealty in hopes of winning their endorsement in the upcoming primaries.

The juxtaposition of the United Auto Workers' negotiations with General Motors and the Change to Win alliance's summit underscored one of the more notable features of the 2008 presidential race. Organized labor may be on the wane, trammeled by outsourcing, foreign competition, automation and an unfriendly administration, but you would not know it from the courting unions are enjoying from the Democratic field.

The leading Democratic candidates made their pitch to the unions in Chicago one week after they addressed the Change to Win alliance's biggest contingent, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), in Washington. Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) has, by his count, participated in 240 strikes or organizing efforts since 2004. But his rivals are hardly ceding the territory -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) reportedly made several last-minute calls to the United Steelworkers to try to stave off their endorsement of Edwards, while Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) is hoping that his backing in the Illinois chapter of SEIU will block the 1.9 million-member union from endorsing Edwards.
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Unions say their endorsements will carry more weight than ever, given how motivated their members are in an election season in which they believe they have a chance of putting Democrats in control of the White House and Congress for the first time since 1994.

When Edwards picked up the support of both the steelworkers and the United Mine Workers of America on Labor Day in Pittsburgh, mine workers President Cecil Roberts gave such a rousing call to arms that one might have thought the nearby steel mills were still working at full strength. "We are still the shock troops of the American labor movement, and when this process is over, millions of workers are going to stand up and be counted!" Roberts shouted.


FULL story at link.