CHICAGO, Nov. 13 (UPI) -- In Democratic Party politics a labor union's endorsement is worth something.
Just how much it is worth in a general election is open to debate.
Seven of the nine Democratic candidates are asking how former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean was able to pick up endorsements from two of the nation's largest unions this week when Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt is supposed to be organized labors' darling?
Dean won official endorsements of the 1.6-million-member Service Employees International Union and the executive board of the America Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Wednesday. Together the two unions represent more than 3 million workers, enough to give Dean's campaign the manpower and organizational muscle to make a difference during the primary season.
Gephardt has garnered endorsements of 21 international unions, including the steelworkers and machinists. A coalition of 16 unions called the Alliance for Economic Justice scheduled a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, Saturday to drum up support for the veteran Missouri congressman in the Iowa presidential caucuses Jan. 19.
Gephardt won the backing of the 36,000-member Iowa branch of the United Auto Workers late Wednesday. The alliance claims 55,000 members ready to ring doorbells and stuff envelopes.
The unanswered question is whether the 13-million-member AFL-CIO, labor's umbrella group, will close ranks behind any single candidate as it did in 1984 with former Vice President Walter Mondale and 2000 with Al Gore.
AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney is no longer pushing a Gephardt endorsement and labor leaders have said they will support any candidate who wins two-thirds of the support of their unions.
"We're not split. We're unified about the goal here, and that's to elect a president other than George Bush in 2004," Sweeney said in an interview with The New York Times. "I think the labor movement will be solidly united in the elections."
Vowing to mount "the largest and most aggressive grassroots campaign this nation has ever seen," AFSCME said it would mobilize its 28,000 members in Iowa to back Dean. AFSCME is the largest labor union in New Hampshire with 7,500 members, and has 45,000 members in Michigan, 50,000 in Washington state and 10,000 in Wisconsin.
"We're going to put boots on the on the ground in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Arizona and every other point that's out there," said Gerald W. McEntee, president of the fast-growing 1.4-million-member union of government workers. "We going to fight to see that he gets the nomination because he's also the guy who can go up against Bush and beat him."
The endorsements add diversity to the campaign of the former Vermont governor, who became the nominal frontrunner by appealing mainly to the educated, white, suburban liberal "brie and wine" set rather than blue- or white-collar labor.
Like the rest of the nation, labor has changed from the days of old-line industrial and trade union bosses representing legions of grimy steelworkers and grease-covered autoworkers. AFSCME, SEIU and the Teamsters now represent millions of service employees, teachers, university employees, nurses and hospital workers.
More than one-third of SEIU members are minorities -- a development that immediately changes the face of Dean's campaign moving it from the fringes of college campuses to the heart of mainstream America.
"Little more than 30 years ago, labor's public face was the gruff, cigar-smoking, former plumber George Meany, construction workers clashed with anti-war protestors on the streets of Lower Manhattan, and reporters searching for the 'typical' wage-earner interviewed assembly-line workers in the Midwest," wrote David Kusnet in the New Republic Online. "These days, some of those anti-war protestors have become national union presidents, construction workers are as likely to be immigrant Hispanics as conservative 'hardhats,' and workers without four-year college degrees are more likely to work for low wages at Wal-Mart than for union wages and health benefits at General Motors."
Labor leaders have watched those demographic changes, which is why McEntee, chairman of the AFL-CIO's political committee, asked the SEIU to delay its formal endorsement of Dean by a week so that the two unions could jointly endorse him.
The coordinated "one-two punch" grabbed Washington media attention.
Although Gephardt has competently fought for labor's core issues for 25 years, after spending tens of millions backing Gore's campaign in 2000, the labor movement can't afford to splinter. With the loss of 2.7 million manufacturing jobs in three years, unions need a champion it feels has the best shot of winning the White House next fall.
It's debatable whether the rank and file will push for loyalty to Gephardt. After fumbling the midterm elections, activists may declare it's time for a new generation of 21st century leadership to emerge.
Dean's technologically savvy fundraising on the Internet allowed him to opt out of the public matching finance system, which limits a presidential candidate's spending to $45 million for the primaries.
Dean is banking on receiving more than the $19 million he stood to collect in federal matching funds from that little box people check on their income tax forms. He can use his deep pockets to fight his Democratic contenders and have enough left over to battle Bush.
Rival Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., a Vietnam War veteran with credentials to challenge Bush on national security, is debating whether to forgo public financing, too.
Of five unions with more than 1 million members, two have endorsed Gephardt -- the Teamsters and the United Food and Commercial Workers.
The 2.7-million-member National Education Association, the country's largest union, which is not affiliated with the AFL-CIO, probably won't make an endorsement until after the primaries.
Gephardt campaign manager Steve Murphy hopes labor remembers who its friends are. Dean supported the North America Free Trade Act in 1993, which unions say has exported U.S. factory jobs to Mexico. As House Democratic leader, Gephardt demanded fair trade as more and more companies relocated plants to foreign countries to take advantage of cheap labor.
Now unions are concerned about white-collar jobs moving offshore.
Both candidates oppose expanding NAFTA to include Central and South America.
Dean has attacked the Bush administration for awarding contracts for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq to companies with strong Republican ties like Bechtel and Halliburton.
Gephardt backed the president's $87 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan.
