| 摘要 | The Democratic presidential candidates will stand before organized labor tonight at Soldier Field, in a debate sponsored by the AFL-CIO. From a debating perspective, the event will probably be a snoozer, at least when the candidates are discussing the bread and butter issues that are important to the AFL-CIO. (Foreign policy, if it comes up, might be a different matter.)
That’s because the candidates have already signed onto labor’s major legislative initiatives. They uniformly endorse the Employee Free Choice Act, a measure that would end the secret ballot in polls of workers deciding whether or not to be represented by a union, making it much easier for labor unions to organize workers. Labor has also successfully persuaded the nominees about the drawbacks of free trade, the need for a different health care system, and, of course, the imperative to roll back tax cuts that benefit the “rich” at the expense of “ordinary” workers.
In fact, the enthusiasm for labor’s priorities has led union bosses to gush at the Democratic field. “It’s a pro-workers field of dreams,” UNITE HERE President Bruce Raynor told the New York Times last week. That same story said that labor’s only challenge with the current crop of candidates is taking sides when all the candidates so closely track their views.
Even though the AFL-CIO has been playing up the debate, what is said or not said this evening will probably not matter when the federation eventually endorses one of the candidates. With such an overwhelmingly pro-labor field, labor unions are now trying to line themselves up with whoever they think is likeliest to win the nomination anyway. And that race is simply a little too close to call right now.
On merits alone, the most clearly “pro-labor” candidate is John Edwards. Since the end of the last campaign, Edwards has been on a relentless journey to secure labor’s endorsement. His luxurious house and hedge fund gig not withstanding, Edwards walked picket lines with union members, cultivated relationships with key labor leaders, stacked his campaign with former union staffers, and spoken the populist rhetoric that the AFL-CIO craves.
In past elections, this probably would have been enough to win labor’s official blessing. Labor was known for being loyal to a fault (remember Dick Gephardt?) and a candidate with that type of devotion to their cause would have been rewarded.
Unfortunately for Mr. Edwards, those days are gone. Labor only represents approximately 12 percent of the private workforce, and many think that number is only headed further south. Rightly or wrongly, organized labor believes that electing a Democrat to the White House is a fundamental step in reversing their membership dearth. To that end, organized labor does not want to repeat its 2004 endorsement fiasco.
In that year, many unions came out early for Howard Dean, when he was the Democratic flavor of the month. Others lined up behind Dick Gephardt, a long-time labor ally. But both of those campaigns eventually fizzled. Indeed, John Kerry won the Democratic nomination with virtually no initial support from labor unions, suggesting that the movement’s political power is vastly overstated, even in the Democratic primary.
This election year, labor will not fall for a candidate simply because he or she is the talk of Washington or has walked in a strike line in Youngstown. They want to show that, even with their dwindling numbers, they really do matter. They want to be endorsing the eventual Democratic nominee, not another runner-up. This means that labor will probably not endorse John Edwards, at least while he is finishing a distant third behind Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama in the polls.
The winner of the Democratic primary is still a long way from being determined. Tonight’s debate will be an easy opportunity for the Democratic candidates to reaffirm their already stated public support for labor’s legislative goals. Actually winning an endorsement from organized labor will be much more difficult.
Bryan O’Keefe is a labor and higher education policy analyst and the Associate Director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, DC. |
