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By Lynn Sweet
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Posted: 06/21/07 06:26 PM [ET] |
Look for the union label. It’s Democratic.
Senate and House Democratic leaders — and the Democratic presidential candidates — are standing in solidarity with organized labor.
As the Senate debates the top agenda item of labor, the Employee Free Choice Act, designed to make it easier to organize in the workplace, it does so with the backing of virtually every top Democrat.
Though the labor movement has splintered — and may not consolidate around one Democratic White House hopeful — union clout was on display outside the Capitol on Tuesday at a rally to promote the cause.
Democratic 2008 rivals, in a variety of forums have pledged to appoint pro-union Labor secretaries. At the AFSCME meeting on Tuesday morning, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), recovering from earlier tepid performances before union groups — notably the International Association of Fire Fighters — said, “I think we can have a Department of Labor that actually understands, it’s the Department of Labor and not the Department of Management. I think we can have a president who is willing, from the Oval Office, to talk about unions and say, unions are a good thing.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said almost all of the GOP senators will oppose the bill — being fought by organized business — and sidestepped a question Tuesday asking him if he is against the bill essentially because union voters are often Democrats. “I don’t know who is advantaged by this, but I think clearly employees in the workplace are disadvantaged by it. This is an opportunity they don’t want,” he said.
Over at the rally — populated with union activists in town for AFSCME’s conference and folks in Washington for the Campaign for America’s Future Take Back America meeting — Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the main author of the union bolstering bill, fired up the troops. “And when that roll call comes, when they call that name, and when they call the name ‘Kennedy,’ the vote will be ‘aye.’ The hand will be in the air. Will you stand with us? Will you stand with us?”
Democrats woo unions because unions can deliver political contributions, field workers and ultimately Democratic votes. In Nevada, a key primary state, union endorsements may have outsized influence.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) at the rally gave ultimate credit to labor. “We do have a majority in the United States Senate because of you.”
All the effort may not mean much in the short term because even if the Democrats in the Senate prevail, President Bush has threatened to veto the bill. All the White House Dem rivals were invited to the rally and Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) were able to make it. Clinton said if Bush gets the chance to wield a veto pen, when “I’m president, I’ll sign it, and we’ll finally get it done.”
Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) told the AFSCME audience, “Isn’t it time to have a president of the United States who’s not afraid to say the word ‘union’ and is proud to stand with you and your cause?”
Just like the Democratic leaders in Congress.
Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail:
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