[NYTr] Obama Win Shakes Up Organized Labor

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by MichaelP

AP via the Guardian - Jan 5, 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7200047,00.html


By JESSE J. HOLLAND
AP Labor Writer

WASHINGTON (AP)  - Despite racking up almost all of the endorsements
from organized labor, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards came in
behind Barack Obama - the only Democratic front-runner with no national
union support - in the Iowa caucuses. That left at least one union
looking for a new candidate Friday.

International Association of Fire Fighters President Howard
Schaitberger called the support for Obama ``breathtaking,'' after
seeing his union's candidate, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., falter in
Iowa and drop out of the race. Despite the money and the manpower
organized labor shifted to Iowa for Clinton, Edwards and Dodd - one
union ran television ads for Clinton while another shifted workers
in-state to stump for Edwards - Obama still won convincingly.

``The tsunami was far greater than we could attempt to hold off,''
Schaitberger said.

Schaitberger said he talked personally with both Obama and Clinton on 
Friday.  But the firefighters would not immediately endorse, he said. 
``Sometime after March, we will begin to reevaluate the remaining 
candidates,'' Schaitberger said.

Union support is supposed to be key to winning the Democratic
presidential primary, with their money and foot soldiers playing key
roles in the early voting states. For example, the political arm of the
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which has
endorsed Clinton, spent at least $250,000 to air television ads in Iowa
urging her victory.

While the Service Employees International Union has not made a national 
endorsement - ``We will make an endorsement when there is a presumptive 
nominee, but it is too early for that,'' SEIU spokeswoman Stephanie 
Mueller said Friday - its local chapters have split their endorsements 
between Clinton, Obama and Edwards.

The Iowa and New Hampshire SEIU locals are supporting Edwards, spending 
more than $2 million trying to get people in those two states to
support the former North Carolina senator. Those resources are now
being shifted solely to New Hampshire.

``In the next few days until the primary, SEIU members will engage in a 
massive get-out-the-vote program to ensure that workers in New
Hampshire turn out in unprecedented numbers on January 8,'' said Jay
Ward, president of the SEIU New Hampshire State Council.

Fifteen percent of New Hampshire Democrats identify themselves as
members of union households.

Following New Hampshire, the next major union state on the calendar is 
Nevada, where the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union, Local 226, is
the biggest political powerhouse.

Obama, Edwards and Clinton have been campaigning hard for the Culinary 
Workers Union support, since the local's national organization, UNITE 
HERE, doesn't immediately plan to endorse anyone in the Democratic
field.

New Hampshire and Nevada are the last union-centric states that vote 
before February. Clinton and Edwards need a victory or a close race to 
keep up with Obama leading up to the February primary calendar.

Clinton is rallying her major labor supporters in Manchester on
Saturday along with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and the
heads of the American Federation of Teachers, the American Federation
of State, County and Municipal Employees, International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the International Union of
Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers and others.