Chicago Tribune, October 10, 2004, Sunday

Chicago Tribune

October 10, 2004 Sunday
Chicago Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS ; ZONE C; Pg. 21

HEADLINE: Labor working hard to get out vote for Kerry;
The firefighters union was an early backer, but not all members are behind the national push

BYLINE: By Stephen Franklin, Tribune staff reporter.

DATELINE: WEST ALLIS, Wis.

BODY:
For the guys in Fire Station House No. 2's sun-splashed day room, Rick Gale was characteristically blunt.
"At the end of the day, this guy [President Bush] hasn't been there for firefighters," said Gale, a strapping 6-foot-3 fireman from this blue-collar Milwaukee suburb and president of the 3,000-member Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin.
His union, the International Association of Fire Fighters, was the first labor group--and one of few initially--to endorse Sen. John Kerry, and lately he has been visiting station houses in addition to spending hours on the telephone talking with union members and others on behalf of the Democratic presidential candidate.
Personal contact can make the difference with voters, explains Gale, who urges his union's members to get their families and neighbors to vote and to spread the word about Kerry to anyone still undecided.
It is a mantra echoed by union leaders across the United States, who say the election could be a turning point on the downward slide that has their ranks at a modern-day low: about 8.2 percent of the private workforce. In the 2000 election, a quarter of all the votes cast came from union households, union officials say.
If the Democrats regain the White House, union officials will have a long wish list, including reforms in the nation's labor laws--statutes that they see as currently favoring businesses and the reason for their shrinking membership.
Frustrated by the Clinton administration's failure over eight years to make headway on that key issue, union leaders say they will demand a payback from the Democrats for their 2004 efforts.
`A defining election'
"This is a defining election," said Karen Ackerman, political director for the AFL-CIO, the umbrella organization for nearly all the nation's unions. "The stakes are enormous for workers. [The Bush administration] is an administration that does the bidding for corporate America. And in four more years, they could unravel many things for workers."
Some unions initially were less than enthusiastic in their support for Kerry. But once he became the Democratic nominee, officials sent down the word that organized labor had to put out its biggest and best effort for him, and that considering the dire situation unions face, the membership could not afford to do otherwise.
Eager to show labor's zeal for the political battle, union officials say members have made 5million campaign-related telephone calls and passed out 1.5million fliers. In addition, 35,000 volunteers had staged door-to-door walks as of early September.
About 3,500 union members are involved full time in campaign efforts across the nation. That's 500 more than on Election Day four years ago, and the unions expect to ratchet up that number to 5,000 come Nov. 2.
In Wisconsin, one of several battleground states, unions have 75 full-time campaign workers, compared with 12 in 2000, and they expect that number to reach 150. Elsewhere, 217 campaigners are active in Missouri, 605 in Pennsylvania and 440 in Ohio.
Just how much money organized labor is spending all told is not known, and unions won't say. But Marick Masters, a University of Pittsburgh business professor who has tracked labor's campaign spending, says this year's effort appears to be greater than ever.
Big spenders
The 1.7 million-member Service Employees International Union, the nation's largest union, plans to spend $65 million, more than twice the amount doled out four years ago. The 1.5 million-member American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees will spend $40 million, about $8 million more than four years ago. The AFL-CIO will spend $44 million, up $3 million from 2000.
Money doesn't buy everything in politics, however. Volunteer power also counts. And the 1.3 million-member Teamsters, which backed Al Gore only in the last days of his presidential campaign--and had been on good terms with the Bush White House--has thrown its muscle into the unions' pro-Kerry effort.
"The level of effort is quite something," said Rick Hurd, a Cornell University labor expert, who could not recall unions spending so much money on getting out the vote. "The only question is whether it will pay off."
Indeed, getting out the vote may be the only area where unions have succeeded lately.
Four years ago, union households accounted for 26 percent of votes cast nationwide, although they account for only 17 percent of registered voters. Their turnout was up 3 percent from 1996, according to the AFL-CIO.
Like those of most Americans, union members' concerns go beyond issues of importance to their leadership. But typically more than 60 percent of the nation's union members vote Democrat, said Guy Molyneux, a pollster for Peter D. Hart Research Associates, which conducts surveys for the unions. It appears that will be the case again in this election, he said.
Still, others wonder about that.
"There are lot of members who are very conservative, who are very religious and who own guns," said Roland Zullo, a labor expert at the University of Michigan. "What unions need to do is work very hard" with those voters.
Similarly, the unions' focus on the economy and health care may not gain traction with voters focused on security and the war in Iraq.
Despite their ability to produce voters, unions also have had trouble pinning down a long-term political strategy, Hurd said.
They were badly divided during the Democratic primaries, and Rep. Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), who was favored by a number of unions, fared poorly, he noted.
By embracing Kerry late in the summer of 2003, months before their labor brethren, Gale's 265,000-member firefighters union set itself apart.
"People used to joke that I was always standing on the stage or next to Kerry," said Harold Schaitberger, a firefighter from Alexandria, Va., who worked his way up to become president of the International Association of Fire Fighters. "But that's because early on it was easy to find a place."
Republican leanings
But it is not unusual for the firefighters to stand somewhat apart within labor circles. Theirs is not a union with longtime blue-collar, Democrat leanings. Rather it is a union with moderate to conservative leanings that represents more than 80 percent of the nation's full-time firefighters.
Made up mostly of white men, the union's rank and file votes slightly more Republican than Democrat. Nearly one-third of its campaign contributions this year will go to Republicans, one of the highest such rates for a union.
And as union officials explain, many members, because of their military backgrounds or the paramilitary nature of their work, find it hard to go against the commander in chief.
"Their instinct is to stand with the commander," said Schaitberger, who realized early on he had to address his members' patriotic feelings in garnering support for Kerry.
The union president said he decided to focus on the issues that affect firefighters, such as boosting staffing levels at firehouses.
Though it has been promoting Kerry heavily, the union has not been unanimous in its support.
In a much-publicized gesture, the 7,200-member Uniformed Firefighters of New York, the union's largest local, came out in support of Bush in early September. Another 3,000-member local in the city has supported Kerry.
So, too, the union's 900-member local in Milwaukee, the largest International Association of Fire Fighters local in Wisconsin, declared its backing for Bush in September. Only one other firefighter local, a small one in Tennessee, has endorsed Bush, union officials said.
The Bush endorsement by the New York firefighters, revered for their heroism in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, was devastating to the union. Still, Schaitberger expects about 60 percent of his membership will vote for Kerry.
But the New York local's break from Kerry was on the mind of at least one West Allis firefighter recently when Gale stopped by Station House No. 2 with several firefighters union officials, who were in town to talk strategy for the campaign.
"It just blew my mind. I consider them to be the best firefighters in the world," said firefighter Guy Wickensheimer, 43. "To me, when our union president says we are endorsing Kerry, that's my decision. That's done."
Before visiting the station house, Gale had explained to the union officials that he tries to stay focused on issues that concern firefighters. As soon as the group sat down with the West Allis firefighters, Gale said he realized that abortion and the right to own a gun are important issues, but firefighters had to pay attention to what affects them.
Frustrated with Bush
Then Kevin O'Connor, a former Baltimore-area firefighter who now oversees the union's political activities, chimed in.
"I am sure you guys were driven to reach out to this president after 9/11," O'Connor said. But, he added, nothing has ever come of union meetings with Bush.
Tim Dupin, a Kansas City, Mo., firefighter who has been serving temporarily as the union's political director, followed up soon after with his account of a fellow firefighter just back from serving with the U.S. military in Iraq.
It was a message meant to remind the men about the needs at home, not Iraq.
"When he was there, he was fully staffed," Dupin recounted. "And he said to me, `We shouldn't be opening fire companies in Iraq while we are closing them down at home.'"