>AFL-CIO leader pledges support for Gore campaign
>August 30, 2000
>
>BY ANN McFEATTERS
>BLADE NATIONAL BUREAU
>
>WASHINGTON - AFL-CIO president John Sweeney estimates his organization will
>spend between $40 million and $45 million this election to try to get Al
>Gore elected, win back the House for Democrats, and influence legislation.
>
>He said that labor's paramount goal is to "strengthen Social Security and
>Medicare,'' meaning it is in hot opposition to Texas Gov. George W. Bush's
>proposal to let workers privately invest some of their payroll taxes.
>
>"We are going to run this election around our issues,'' Mr. Sweeney vowed
>yesterday, citing Social Security, health care and prescription drugs,
>education, and fair trade.
>
>The Democratic National Committee is expected to introduce an ad campaign
>on Social Security after Labor Day, arguing that under Mr. Bush's plan some
>Americans would not get the minimum benefits they receive now.
>
>Despite labor's anger with Vice President Gore over his support of free
>trade, especially permanent trade relations with China, the AFL-CIO is
>working as hard for him through get-out-the-vote drives, education, and
>grass roots work, as it has ever worked for a presidential candidate.
>
>For one reason, Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush agree that trade with China should be
>open, although the AFL-CIO argues that it should not be until labor
>standards and environmental controls are in place.
>
>However, Mr. Gore hopes to get the support of the Teamsters, and on his
>left flank is fighting Ralph Nader for the hearts of many union members.
>Just as Mr. Bush boasts he is a "reformer with results,'' Mr. Gore's
>unofficial slogan is that he will "fight for working families.''
>
>Labor Day is the traditional start of the final race to the November
>elections. In his annual pre-Labor Day news conference, Mr. Sweeney said
>unions learned their lesson in 1994 - that when their members stayed away
>from the polls, "Newt Gingrich got control'' of the House.
>
>In 1994, union members made up only 13 per cent of the electorate and
>Democrats lost the House and the Senate. Two years later union members made
>up nearly a fourth of the electorate and Democrats picked up seats. This
>year the AFL-CIO has 70 field representatives concentrating on 71 House races.
>
>As a consequence, the AFL-CIO spent $35 million in the next two-year
>election cycle, culminating in its all-out support for Bill Clinton in
>1996, even though unions opposed his stand on trade. This year Republicans
>are counting on a $100 million ad campaign to try to spur more people to
>register to vote Republican.
>
>Mr. Sweeney said the union movement, which suffered a steady decline in
>membership until 1997, is back up to 16.5 million members. But that still
>is not as high as 1994 when membership reached 16.7 million. The AFL-CIO's
>organizing goal is 1 million new members a year.
>
>Membership increased 265,000 in 1999 and Mr. Sweeney said the AFL-CIO,
>which has 68 member unions, is heartened by outcomes of the recently
>concluded Verizon strike, through which 87,000 employees won higher wages,
>the Boeing strike, and the Justice for Janitors strike.
>
>Mr. Sweeney was skittish about detailing how much gets spent for what in an
>election year but stressed that "almost none'' of its money will go
>directly to candidates and that "we'll be outspent 11-to-1 by big business.
>We'll never match the money being spent by the opposition.''
>
>Corporate America and the union movement dueled head-to-head in 1996, with
>corporations giving large amounts in so-called soft-money donations to the
>Republican National Committee and labor spending millions on so-called
>issue ads, which stop just short of advocating a specific candidate.
>
>This year labor's might will be felt not on the airwaves but through "our
>people power,'' Mr. Sweeney said. The aim is to use human contact to urge
>every union member to vote.
>
>Beginning at noon today through Sept. 6, the AFL-CIO is sponsoring a Labor
>Day "festival'' on the Internet at www.workingfamilies.com.
>
>The site features electronic cards, links to voter information and
>candidate voting records, links to the candidates, voter registration,
>music, clips of celebrities, such as Martin Sheen, endorsing unions,
>coloring books, and games such as smashing the CEO's head and playing
>"where's the health insurance'' shell game. The AFL-CIO estimates that 60
>per cent of union members have personal computers and three-fourths of
>those have Internet access.
>
>The idea behind the web site, says the AFL-CIO's Denise Mitchell, is to
>communicate better with members and, more broadly, to try to get rid of the
>anti-union sentiment that the AFL-CIO believes former President Reagan
>caused when he shut down the air controllers union.
>
>The AFL-CIO has a "working women vote'' campaign to argue for equal pay,
>health care, safe pensions, and control over work hours, based on the
>premise working women are swamped between work and family obligations.
>Politicians are being asked to attend "Ask a Working Woman'' forums.
>
>The AFL-CIO and the National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice,
>citing voters' concern about "values'' this election, are sponsoring "Labor
>Day worship services'' as part of a Labor in the Pulpits program. An
>estimated 650 congregations are planning services Monday.
>
>The AFL-CIO hopes to put 2,000 union members up for elective office Nov. 7.
>Two years ago 620 union members ran for office and the AFL-CIO said 420
>were elected.
>
>© 1999, 2000 The Blade, All Rights Reserved.