Edwards gets two big union labels By: Mike Allen Sep 3, 2007 08:15 AM EST
In a surprise announcement, John Edwards will be endorsed this Labor Day morning by two powerful unions -- the United Steelworkers and United Mine Workers. That gives Edwards the largest bloc of formal labor support among the Democratic presidential candidates.
The announcement is being made in Pittsburgh, where the presidents of the two unions are to march with the candidate's wife, Elizabeth Edwards, in the annual Labor Day parade through downtown Pittsburgh. The presidents are scheduled to join John Edwards onstage when he addresses close to 1,000 union members and their families during a rally at the Mario Lemieux Place-Mellon Arena.
Speakers plan to stress his support for working families but also the importance of nominating a Democratic candidate who is electable in all parts of the country. Electability has always been an implicit theme for Edwards, but his campaign plans to make it more explicit in coming days, advisers say.
Edwards advisers contend that the endorsements reflect an important shift in the race, since he gains significant ground support in the early-voting states. The United Steelworkers represents 8,685 workers in Iowa, and 6,330 in South Carolina, 3,171 in Nevada and 2,250 in New Hampshire.
Edwards, former U.S. senator from North Carolina, had counted on union endorsements as a foundation of his strategy, but they have been slow in coming. The executive council of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the nation's largest labor federation, voted last month against endorsing a presidential candidate, allowing its individual unions – including the mine workers – to make their own.
The United Steelworkers represents 1.2 million members and retirees, and the UMW represents 105,000 active and retired workers.
On Thursday, Edwards was endorsed by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, which represents 520,000 in building-trades industries. The union is to make it official at a rally of union members on Sept. 8 in New Hampshire, where the union has 2,136 members. It represents 12,618 members in Nevada, 3,907 in Iowa and 865 in South Carolina.
In a statement, Edwards calls the two unions "the backbone of the American labor movement," and says: "These workers have felt the negative impact of a broken system in Washington that is rigged against America's working families for far too long – whether it's the tragic lack of oversight in mine safety, trade agreements written to benefit multinational corporations while they ship American jobs overseas, or the millions of working Americans who still can't afford health insurance."
A United Steelworkers endorsement statement to be released later today notes "that numerous polls show Edwards to be the most electable Democrat in the general election." Leo W. Gerard, the union president, says: "All of the Democratic candidates in the field share our values, and any one of them would be a major improvement over the current administration. But none of them is a more forceful advocate for those values than John Edwards."
The union's international executive board voted unanimously on the endorsement Sunday afternoon, the statement says. United Steelworkers calls itself the nation's largest private sector union.
Cecil E. Roberts, international president of the United Mine Workers of America, praised Edwards as "the candidate with the most comprehensive and forward-thinking plan dealing with climate change," and said he is "the best fit for UMWA members of all the candidates for president."
Roberts said the endorsement by the UMW, the world's largest coal union, will provide Edwards with critical strength in the 2008 battleground states of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio – "among the handful of states where the election will be won next November."
The other notable labor endorsements so far, according to The Associated Press, have been: New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has been endorsed by the United Transportation Union and the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd has been endorsed by the International Association of Fire Fighters.