(Bloomberg News circulated the following story by Kim Chipman on October 22.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The House of Labor, divided against itself, has a lot riding on this presidential election: turning out its members for Democrat Barack Obama and proving it isn’t a paper tiger.
Organized labor couldn’t come through for the Democrats in the last two elections. This year, the AFL-CIO, the biggest federation with 10.5 million members and affiliates, is mounting its largest mobilization effort, targeting retirees, military veterans and firearm owners in union-heavy Ohio, where the race is particularly close.
A rival federation, the 6 million-member Change to Win, also is gearing up a get-out-the-vote push before Nov. 4.
“It’s show time,” Andy Stern, 58, head of the 2 million- member Service Employees International Union, said as he knocked on doors last weekend in the Cleveland suburb of Parma for Illinois Senator Obama. “This time the Democrats are ready for the curtain to go up.”
The effort, however, faces several challenges, including lingering tensions between the two labor powerhouses resulting from a 2005 dispute in which Stern’s group and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters split with AFL-CIO Chairman John Sweeney to form the seven-member Change to Win federation.
`Joe the Plumber’
In addition, while labor has long been a crucial base of support for Democrats, Republican presidential nominee John McCain is trying to make inroads among union members. This month, the Arizona senator has held up an Ohio man he calls “Joe the Plumber” as an example of a small-business owner who would be penalized by Obama’s tax plan.
Republicans also are targeting union members by appealing to their conservative views about social issues such as abortion, gay marriage and gun rights.
“I will probably have to vote for McCain because I believe two Supreme Court judges will be picked by the next president and we need people in there who will properly interpret the Constitution,” said John Balli, 42, a member of the pipe- fitters’ union who works in Ohio and lives in Guilford, Indiana.
Primary Battle
Obama, 47, had lagged among union members and lower-wage voters during his battle for the Democratic nomination with Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, who won in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The financial crisis has changed the dynamic, Stern said.
“In good times, Obama would have a more difficult time,” Stern said. “But at the moment he has won the war on who is on your side.”
Jackie Kasl, a 42-year-old cleaning woman in Parma, asked Stern for an Obama sign for her yard last weekend and volunteered to help canvass.
“There really isn’t a middle class anymore; I used to be in it, but now I’m at poverty level,” said Kasl, a former construction worker and union member. Obama is “going to bring it back.”
Drawing a lesson from past elections, however, the unions aren’t declaring victory. In 2004, they touted their role and wound up highlighting their dwindling membership numbers and waning clout when Democrat John Kerry was defeated by President George W. Bush.
21 States
This year, AFL-CIO leaders aren’t drawing as much attention to their efforts, yet the federation’s unions are spending a combined record amount of $250 million to target 13 million union households in 21 states, the group’s broadest mobilization effort. SEIU, meanwhile, said it is spending $85 million on national and state races this year, while Change to Win will spend more than $150 million.
Union households made up almost 30 percent of the vote in Ohio in 2006. Nationwide this year, they account for 25 percent of voters, the AFL-CIO said.
“The undecided voters are breaking very quickly in Obama’s favor,” said AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, citing internal polls.
Some labor officials, though, acknowledge they were worried about the ability of a black candidate such as Obama to attract enough union members.
“Race. Race. Race,” Harriett Applegate, executive secretary of the Cleveland-area AFL-CIO North Shore Federation of Labor, said when asked why she thought Obama has had trouble boosting his numbers in Ohio. The financial crisis, she said, has focused voters on the economy.
`Guns, God and Gays’
“Guns, God and gays are still an issue,” said United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard. “But in many places the economy is trumping that.”
Early in the election, AFL-CIO polls showed the economy as the top issue for about 55 percent of members, said Karen Ackerman, the union’s national political director. “After the crisis, that number shot up to about 80 percent,” she said.
Ben Waxman, who heads the AFL-CIO’s Ohio “war room” in Columbus, said union members’ pensions lost a combined $1 trillion three weeks ago when stocks began to tank.
“That’s a powerful figure,” he said.
Unions are working to boost turnout in urban areas, especially among black, Latino and young voters, to help offset the potential lag among white voters in rural sections of Ohio, Virginia and other battlegrounds.
Still, labor faces an obstacle it didn’t have in 2004: division among the biggest unions. While the tensions have been largely shelved during the election, operating two separate programs in states such as Ohio “has made everything extremely inefficient,” Applegate said. “We are out there working separately.”