(The following story by Todd Spangler appeared on the Detroit Free-Press website on August 28.)
DENVER — Every presidential election year is a big one for organized labor. For the UAW, the Teamsters, AFL-CIO and others, the prospect of putting a pro-labor Democrat in the White House and adding to Democratic control of Congress is a tantalizing target.
But labor also will be called on to deal with what could be another factor in this year’s election — race — after Democrats nominated Sen. Barack Obama for president on Wednesday. He is the first African American to be the nominee of a major party.
Speaking to the Michigan delegation to the Democratic convention on Wednesday morning, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka talked about a woman — a labor supporter and a Democrat — he knows in Pennsylvania who could not bring herself to vote for a black man in the party primary.
“Democrats can’t tap-dance around the fact there’s a lot of people out there like that woman,” he said.
In battleground states like Michigan, no one is really certain how big a factor people like that might be. Determining who might be swayed by a candidate’s race or ethnic background through an opinion poll is undeniably difficult.
What seems certain, however, is that it will fall to labor and its massive get-out-the-vote operations to try to overcome that attitude — and any other voter concerns — about Obama. Labor leaders say the effort is under way among their rank and file.
“I think there’s a race issue everywhere,” and not just among union members, said James P. Hoffa, the general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, who came out early in favor of Obama and campaigned for him throughout the primaries. “Race shouldn’t be an issue.”
What should be an issue, he said, is that only one candidate — Obama — supports positions Hoffa and other union leaders insist will stimulate the economy and put people back to work making good wages.
Republican candidate Sen. John McCain argues otherwise: He says Obama’s plans will cost Americans jobs by raising taxes on individuals and business. But most labor leaders are solidly behind Obama as representing their best interests when it comes to wages, work rules, organizing and health care.
That will be the message labor employs to sway rank-and-file members who might otherwise be reluctant to back Obama, whatever the reason, in battleground states like Michigan.
According to the most recent Free Press poll of Michigan voters, Obama led McCain among union households, 48% to 38%, just slightly more than Obama’s advantage among all voters, 46% to 39%.
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said whatever issues might keep union members from voting for Obama, they need to be addressed simply by education. He said, “We just want to make sure they know what they’re doing” because once the election is over, it’s over.
In the end, said former U.S. Rep. David Bonior of Mt. Clemens, who’s chairman of American Rights at Work, a pro-labor organization in Washington, D.C., organized labor will turn out at least two-thirds of its millions of members for Obama.
“We’re going to do fine,” he said.
The Obama campaign said it has had plenty of success attracting people of all races, gender and backgrounds — and will have even more success as the candidates’ messages spread.