Labor takes low profile on Team Obama

WASHINGTON, Nov. 26 (UPI) -- Union leaders say they're disappointed U.S. President-elect Barack Obama didn't include a new secretary of Labor as part of his core economic team this week.

Even so, most said they are convinced Obama will appoint a Labor secretary, as well as a new International Trade Representative, who will drastically change the level of support organized labor and workers' concerns will receive in the White House -- especially considering millions of dollars unions raised for his campaign, the Washington publication Politico reported Wednesday.

"I wish that (the secretary of Labor) would have been among (Obama's economic team introduced this week)," former Michigan congressman David Bonior, a labor ally and member of Obama's transition team, told the publication. "I hope they take that job seriously."

With names such as former House of Representatives Democratic leader Richard Gephardt and Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius being mentioned as possible Labor secretaries, unions' effectiveness in moving workers' issues higher on the Obama agenda has been hobbled by a split within their ranks, analysts told Politico.

One side is led by the AFL-CIO and its older, white members, while the Service Employees International Union, with its younger and minority workers, is on the other side of the labor divide, they said.