(The Associated Press distributed the following article on October 1.)
WASHINGTON — Dick Gephardt picked up the backing of his 15th labor union Wednesday, a day after the AFL-CIO dealt a blow to the Democratic presidential candidate by postponing an endorsement meeting for a second time.
The 180,000-member Amalgamated Transit Union announced its endorsement of the Missouri congressman, with the union’s president, Warren George, saying Gephardt “stood with us when the Republican Congress tried to take away the job protections for transit workers and we’re proud to stand with him now.”
The ATU includes bus, subway, light rail and ferry operators, as well as clerks, baggage handlers, mechanics and others involved in the transit industry.
Gephardt has received the endorsement of most of the national unions; rival John Kerry got the backing of the International Association of Fire Fighters last week. Other unions have postponed their decisions, in part because of Wesley Clark’s late entry into the race.
In August, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said he would hold a mid-October meeting to consider Gephardt, but only if there were sufficient support from about two-thirds of the federation’s 13 million members. The former House minority leader, with the strongest support among labor groups, was seen as the most likely candidate for a rare endorsement in the primary race.
But at a meeting Tuesday, several of the unions voted to postpone an endorsement, among them the Service Employees International Union, the largest union with 1.6 million members; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, with 1.5 million members, and the United Auto Workers.
Sweeney did free affiliated unions to endorse candidates, a move Gephardt welcomed because of his ties to the groups.
Gephardt’s endorsements have come mostly from trades and industrial unions with a collective membership of more than 3.5 million.